GGWCUP team from Germany
Team Hope Fighters will be playing for Global Goal 4 Quality Education
About coach Shabnam Ruhin
Hamburg, Germany
My motivation to be part of this special GGWCup & Erasmus+ Programme project
“My name is Shabnam Ruhin and I was born July 1990 in Hamburg. In 1989, my parents left our home country of Afghanistan for Germany. They wanted to make sure that when they started a family, their children would have the opportunity for a good education and involvement in sports.
I live with my parents and three siblings. I am a university student and I study biomedical engineering. I started my soccer journey as an 8 year old. I started playing street soccer with the boys from my neighborhood. I had to overcome some obstacles as the only girl playing among a lot of boys. I started playing for my first club ESV Einigkeit when I was 15. Ever since I was a young girl I have always dreamed of playing for my home countries Afghanistan/Germany. This dream came true in 2012. That year I had my debut with the national Afghan women’s football team. I remember my first game against Sri Lanka. I was blessed to have my younger sister Mariam along with me.
My motivation is to bring more equality between men and women, to bring the chance and the right to have a quality education for everyone, to be the voice for the voiceless and to motivate people with my energy.
We use the power of football to empower women. We use the power of football to raise awareness.”
Meet the team: Hope Fighters
Playing for Global Goal 4 - quality education
The team will be playing for Global Goal 4 Equality Education and they will take action by visiting refugee camps and share their stories on how it is possible to get an education. They will use the power of sports, movement and football to engage the young women in the conversations and will let the conversations and visits evolve naturally.
The players on team Hope Fighters have all "faced a discrimination of some sort". For example they have been experiencing difficulties in finding a job when wearing the hijab, or on the contrary, have been feeling like the “outsider” of the family because of not wearing the hijab and having short hair and playing football. All team members are students and some have football experience.
Meet the Players
Meet Sara Akbulut. "In this world you have only one ultimatum weapon and that is education! Money and power are nothing compared to knowledge! Education not only means going to school, it also means that you have to give your knowledge to the person next to you. In my opinion, everyone needs the access to educate themselves, go on trips and see the world to gain knowledge, wisdom and an open mind. And with that the world is gonna be in good, reflective and optimistic hands."
Meet Nasiha Kader. She’s 27 and studying Special Needs Education in Mathematics at the University of Hamburg and will finish her master’s degree this year. “Our goal, Quality Education, is important to me because education is not accessible to everyone in the world. I want to call attention to people, players and the audience of the Global Goal World Cup and Impact Games to understand that the education we have in Europe is not taken for granted. We need quality education everywhere and for everyone. This means the inclusion and equality of disabled people and refugees, too. Quality education equals inclusion!”
Meet Zuhra Kader. Why is quality education important to her? “In my opinion, education is the first basic step to achieve other important development goals such as gender equality, good health, decent work and economic growth, peace justice and strong institutions, without education, we cannot achieve freedom! Without education, people cannot develop their potential. The lack of basic skills like reading, writing and arithmetic makes it impossible to lead a self- determined life or to participate actively in social processes. In addition, education contributes significantly to poverty reduction and is a key element of development, both at the individual and societal levels. Education is not only the prerequisite for sustainable economic growth, but it also promotes particular participation in political events. In addition, education shows young people perspectives for their future lives and is thus a key in the fight against youth violence.
Supporting organization
Girls Power is a non-profit grassroots sports entity, established in June 2014 Denmark. It's passionate about empowering women and Girls from different social and cultural background from around the world through the power of sports. The organization operates in two geographical areas; Europe and South Asia. The organisation’s main target group (s) in Europe are women and girls of minorities, such as refugees, migrants, LBT. Through the power of sports, such as (football, zumba dance, yoga, cycling, swimming) and team building, leadership workshops, networking events etc we support, empower, include women & girls in society.
In South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Sari Lanka, Bangladesh) the target group (s) are women and girls from rural areas where there has been less development and less cultural and social activities for women & girls.
Girl Power is founded by Khalida Popalzai, former captain of the Afghanistans women’s national team. Khalida is a warrior for hope and justice and was in 2017 nominated to the GGWCup SDG5 Dream Team by Moya Dodd, the highest ranking woman in Australian and Asian soccer.
Learn more about Girl Power on Facebook and visit the website.
Resume
Resume
Shabnam has leadership and football experience on the Afghanistan women’s national team.
Shabnam also obtained leadership training with coach Kelly during a training campus
SDG Experience
“I have leadership skills and learned how to be a leader and a motivator for the young players in the team.”
Meet the Europe Ambassador coaches
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