Mini Tournament in Baalbek, Bekaa, January 22, 2010

It is still not a normal thing for girls in more rural areas of Lebanon to take part in sports activities, and especially not together with boys.
In Baalbek, the biggest city in the Bekaa Valley, CCPA volunteers are working hard to change this. Together with the seven Popular Clubs in the region, the local CCPA Coordinator Mohammad has been organizing Mini Tournaments to make the children and coaches of the clubs meet and have fun – and these Mini Tournaments can work as a small stepping stone for making girls participate in public space activities and in sports.
The Mini Tournament on January 22, 2010 brought boys from all over the Bekaa Valley together with a group of girls for some hours of football and other sports activities. Around 60 boys and girls with different sectarian, religious and political backgrounds came from the CCPA Popular Clubs in Al Ein, Brital and Baalbek and were accompanied by 5 coaches and some parents and other interested persons from the area.

Before coming to the Mini Tournament in Baalbek, the children didn’t know each other, but after a couple of hours of games and sports

activities, new friendships were made – and boys and girls were mixing and having fun together while coaches and parents handed out snacks and refreshments to all participants. Zahra, one of the female coaches of the Popular Club in Brital thinks that even though girls and boys can play together at the Mini Tournament, it would be better if a club was established only for girls: “When the girls are playing alone, more girls will come. Many, many more, just wait and see. Sometimes the boys are a bit too wild, and some parents are also hesitating to let their daughters playing with boys.”

 

Zahra who is a university student has experienced how difficult it can be for a woman to enter the male dominated world of sports. She took part as the only woman in a CCPA seminar with 30 male coaches in spite of her parents’ protests, but she decided to go, and now after being trained as a CCPA coach she is planning to establish her own Popular Club in the village of Brital – for girls only!

 

 

Top of page ↑