1,000 children from Pakistan schools take part in Dubai sports tournament

Inaugural International Sports Festival seeks to nurture and honour ties between the UAE and Pakistan.

DUBAI // More than 1,000 children from schools in Pakistan and across the UAE are taking part in an inaugural sports tournament that seeks to nurture and honour ties between the two countries.

The five-day International Sports Festival begins on Tuesday and features football, basketball, table tennis and throwball matches for boys and girls.

The competition forms part of Pakistan Association Dubai’s ongoing Solidarity Celebrations to mark UAE National Day and runs until Friday.

The tournament is being run in partnership with the Foundation Public School (FPS) in Karachi and is an expansion of the tournament it has run in Pakistan for more than a decade.

“The relationship between Pakistan and the UAE has always been positive and based on mutual respect and understanding,” said Zahid Tirmzi, vice present of Pad.

“Whenever we have had an earthquake or flooding in Pakistan, the UAE has always helped and that is something which all Pakistanis are thankful for.”

To celebrate that relationship FPS has organised the competition along with Pad and the Ministry of Education’s UAE Interschool Sports Association.

“We have about 12 schools taking part this year but we plan to make it an annual event so hopefully next time we will get even more schools to take part,” said Mr Tirmzi.

Along with FPS, also taking part from Pakistan are Head Start School and Dawood Public School, which are both in Karachi.

In total, 1,200 pupils under the age of 16 will be taking part.

“We have been running these sports festivals for about 15 years now in Karachi and they have proved to be very popular,” said Murad Hussein, senior manager at FPS.

“It has grown in popularity every year and we wanted to expand it to the UAE so we approached the Pad to help us organise it.”

The sports festival is one of a number of events Pad has organised to mark National Day this year.

On November 21 it will host “Iqbal and National Identity”, which focuses on the importance of national identity in the UAE and is being run with Dubai’s Community Development Authority.

From November 26 to 29 Pad headquarters in Bur Dubai will host a food festival featuring Shireen Anwar and Rida Aftab, who host a Pakistani cooking show on Masala TV.

More than 12,000 people are expected to attend during the course of the event.

The main focus of the celebrations will be on the 2km solidarity walk in Bur Dubai on November 28, with more than 10,000 people expected to take part.