At the start of the year, a British teacher in the UAE became the first female football commentator at a major sporting event in the Emirates. Amy Gillingham, 29, told The National: "I have played since I was a kid, so I had lots to say.”
In that summation, Gillingham, who spent 90 minutes giving real-time commentary in the Super Cup final on January 7, managed to highlight the important issue of women in sport and what is possible if girls have equal opportunity, encouragement and access to sporting facilities.
“If I can inspire more girls to take up the sport in the process, I will be a happy lady because that really is my motivation,” Gillingham said. She is not alone in that quest.
Emirati women in sport have over the years been role models for girls to take up a sport. In 2016, Nada Al Bedwawi became the first Emirati woman swimmer to represent the country at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
And welcomingly, much before the pandemic isolated and shunted indoors not just athletes, the number of Emirati women footballers rose from 800 players in 2014 to 2,300 players in 2017. Former goalkeeper for the UAE women's national team Houriya Al Taheri even made history as the first Arab female Fifa coach. But internationally, there is a long way to go. The International Olympic Committee says just 10 per cent of accredited coaches at the Olympic Summer and Winter Games over the past decade have been female.
The bigger picture notwithstanding, there are several examples from the Middle East that can encourage and inspire young girls who want to, even if not competitively, participate in local marathons or pick up a tennis racquet as a matter of habit.
Last year, Emirati Shahad Budebs was part of the first Arab team to make it to the world CrossFit games in the US. Another female trailblazer is the Emirati champion, UAE's "ice hockey queen" Fatima Al Ali. And Saudi Arabia sprinter Yasmeen Al Dabbagh, her nation’s flagbearer at the Olympic opening ceremony in Tokyo last year, spoke of inspiring others in the way she was inspired by past Saudi Olympians.
But despite the progress, not enough girls play sport, for a host of cultural and socio-economic reasons, of which a large part is education.
“There are still more than 127 million girls who are deprived of education," Malala Yousafazi told Expo 2020 Dubai visitors this weekend. The 24-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and activist, who the Taliban shot in the head when she was 15, for advocating for women's rights and education, spoke of how gender should never be the deterrent for any role boys or girls aspire to.
When girls are in school, they can avail of the school badminton court or running track, sporting facilities that are an invaluable platform to stay the course and not give up sport – as is too often the case in at least developing countries – due to factors such as family pressure. Parents too, world over, need to understand why daughters should be encouraged to play a sport, beyond finishing their homework. The benefits are many.
Nor is this merely about fitness or health, which, although undeniably important, can be maintained at a gym. Taking up sport has a positive effect on women's lives and professions. The World Economic Forum cited an Ernst and Young study that saw a connection between women, sport and leadership; attributing the top three leadership skills developed by sport: the ability to see projects through, team work and motivation.
The Middle East, especially, has the advantage of a predominantly young demographic, with the World Bank saying, two thirds of the Mena population is under the age of 35. Considering the region's "youth bulge", there are plenty of girls who can have a shot at turning pro, given the equal opportunity.
Research also shows that investment in girls and sport contributes to economic growth overall and national development. To achieve this, role models, male and female, can start with urging parents to nudge their girls to pick up a racquet or join a local team. The pay-offs are too significant to ignore – for girls, for parents, for champions of women's rights, for organisations, and those who believe we must live in a world where, for both boys and girls, there must exist a level playing field.
Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
- Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
Hunting park to luxury living
- Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
The specs: Rolls-Royce Cullinan
Price, base: Dh1 million (estimate)
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 563hp @ 5,000rpm
Torque: 850Nm @ 1,600rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 15L / 100km
UAE%20SQUAD
%3Cp%3E%0DJemma%20Eley%2C%20Maria%20Michailidou%2C%20Molly%20Fuller%2C%20Chloe%20Andrews%20(of%20Dubai%20College)%2C%20Eliza%20Petricola%2C%20Holly%20Guerin%2C%20Yasmin%20Craig%2C%20Caitlin%20Gowdy%20(Dubai%20English%20Speaking%20College)%2C%20Claire%20Janssen%2C%20Cristiana%20Morall%20(Jumeirah%20English%20Speaking%20School)%2C%20Tessa%20Mies%20(Jebel%20Ali%20School)%2C%20Mila%20Morgan%20(Cranleigh%20Abu%20Dhabi).%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Strait of Hormuz
Fujairah is a crucial hub for fuel storage and is just outside the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route linking Middle East oil producers to markets in Asia, Europe, North America and beyond.
The strait is 33 km wide at its narrowest point, but the shipping lane is just three km wide in either direction. Almost a fifth of oil consumed across the world passes through the strait.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the strait, a move that would risk inviting geopolitical and economic turmoil.
Last month, Iran issued a new warning that it would block the strait, if it was prevented from using the waterway following a US decision to end exemptions from sanctions for major Iranian oil importers.
RESULTS
Lightweight (female)
Sara El Bakkali bt Anisha Kadka
Bantamweight
Mohammed Adil Al Debi bt Moaz Abdelgawad
Welterweight
Amir Boureslan bt Mahmoud Zanouny
Featherweight
Mohammed Al Katheeri bt Abrorbek Madaminbekov
Super featherweight
Ibrahem Bilal bt Emad Arafa
Middleweight
Ahmed Abdolaziz bt Imad Essassi
Bantamweight (female)
Ilham Bourakkadi bt Milena Martinou
Welterweight
Mohamed Mardi bt Noureddine El Agouti
Middleweight
Nabil Ouach bt Ymad Atrous
Welterweight
Nouredine Samir bt Marlon Ribeiro
Super welterweight
Brad Stanton bt Mohamed El Boukhari
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish chemist and entrepreneur Alfred Nobel.
- In his will he dictated that the bulk of his estate should be used to fund "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".
- Nobel is best known as the inventor of dynamite, but also wrote poetry and drama and could speak Russian, French, English and German by the age of 17. The five original prize categories reflect the interests closest to his heart.
- Nobel died in 1896 but it took until 1901, following a legal battle over his will, before the first prizes were awarded.
