It has been historically proven that sports bring people and countries closer together, that is what the Olympics has stood for, and ever four years it brings stories of triumph, inspiration and hope. But the Olympics are not the only sports arena where battles have been fought, for many girls around the world sports was, and is, something they could have only in their dreams. Nonetheless many girls took the love and desire of the game to another level, they used it show their voice and demand their rights. One such group of young girls is the Afghan womans soccer team, the first Afghan national women's soccer team. Shamila Kohestani is the captain of team, and her story, like many other young girls under the iron bars of Talibani rule, is not one of a girl who's childhood was nothing but roses, but one of endless struggle.
“I was out wearing a burqa, but because I had just started to wear it, I did not have the practice to cover all my body,” Kohestani says. “[The Talib] asked me why I had not covered the front part of my body. So he beat me and I threw the burqa off and escaped” (Female soccer star achieves goals).
A long way from her secret class rooms in Afghanistan, education for girls was strictly forbidden, Shamila is now in the United States to pursue her education, and has yet again defied the odds.
Late in the season at her new school in the United States, Shamila missed the soccer team, but this was no deterrent for the bright teenager, who quickly took on a new sport. Shamila can now be found dribbling not down the soccer field, but the basket ball court!
Regardless of what sport Shamila is playing she shows that determination above all, gives hope to the future! Her future is bright and Shamila knows that the real power of women in Afghanistan is not just found on the field, but in the classrooms, and she continues to remain focused on her studies so that she may return to Afghanistan and it is here where her real battle has begun.
"This was a young woman who had never used a calculator before, did know how to use a computer, but didn't have one," said Hardwick, the headmaster. "She had a lot of holes in her educational background, because she had been out of school for about five or six years of her early learning. If there is any great leveler in the world, it's got to be education, and this is what she wants, she wants to be educated." (Soccer as an Escape to Hope for Afghan Teenager)
Everyone who has met Shamila believes that their is no stopping her and that she will over come the hurdles that lie before her, just as she has so many times before.
More on Shamila and Sports in Afghanistan:
Once Whipped By Taliban, Girl Makes Mark As Soccer Star
Soccer players shoot goals for Afghan women
Afghanistan: Women's Soccer Wins Support In First Games Abroad
The Afghan Youth Sports Exchange
I would also recommend you check out the movie ‘Osama‘, the first feature film out of the post-Taliban Afghanistan. The film shows one 12 year old girls struggle, as she tries to save her family and disguises herself as a boy to work.
