24/02/2019
“I’m Karishma Inayat. I belong to Shimshal Hunza, Gilgit Batistan and I am 20 years old. I started playing football in 2012. Being from Shimshal, it was very tough for me to pursue sports initially. However, I was ambitious and never gave up on my dreams. I’ve played in several clubs including Eagles WFC, AKYSB WFC and DIYA karachi which is a well known club of Pakistan. I, along with my two sisters; Sumaira and Ambreen, are the first Shimshali girls who represented Pakistan at Jubilee Games in Dubai which was organized by Agha Khan Youth Sport Board in 2016. While my sisters and I competed in the Jubilee games, my brother and cousins started giving football training to the girls of my valley. With the help of a little sponsorship by Samina Khayal (Pakistan’s first female climber) who also belongs to Shimshal, we organized our first football tournament in 2016. Due to the positive response of the participants and their families, we decided to organize Shimshal Girls Football League every year. The craze of football was increasing in the girls of my area and we observed the demand of a girls’ football tournament on a bigger level. We started preparing for GBGFL in January and in a very short period of time, succeeded in gathering enough sponsors for the event. This was our first edition, therefore we invited 8 teams consisting of 14 players each, from Gojal (Upper Hunza). Almost 120 girls participated in the tournament. We called out for volunteers from Passu and managed to accommodate 40 volunteers in our tournament. The venue ‘Passu Cricket Ground’ that had been selected for the tournament was a bit risky for us since it is attached to main Karakoram Highway (KKH) and it was the very first girls’ football tournament in Gilgit Baltistan. But with the support of Passu Youth and locals we made it successful. We tried to keep it as convenient as possible for the players by providing accommodation, food and traveling expenses to the teams. This winter, we sponsored ‘GOAL’ winter football camp in 3 villages and we’re proud to have on board 200 families with us. We aim to host and organize such tournaments every year and build football grounds in every village so that people of my area, especially girls, could continue playing football and become mentally and physically strong.” Says one of the Inayat sisters from Hunza.
