Cnn
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Malala Yousafzai is known to millions of people worldwide as a human rights activist, a voice of power and inspiration that survived an attempted assassination by the Taliban at the age of 15. Perhaps less known is his life as a fanatic of sport.
But take any major women’s sporting event in recent years and you can bet on the fact that Yousafzai is in the stands, be it cricket, football, basketball, netball or the Olympic games and the Commonwealth. She even chose to spend an icy evening for Valentine’s Day with her husband, ensuring Malik, watching American Rugby Star Ilona Maher Turn for the English club Bristol Bears.
Now Yousafzai – Mononly called Malala – transforms her fandom into a platform to invest in female sports around the world, both in terms of professional and amateur.
Recreation is his latest initiative to improve the rights of women and girls through sport, a concept you could say is in the pipeline since Yousafzai’s childhood in Pakistan.
“I remember at the time of school recreation where boys would go to the local cricket playground and the girls had to stay behind,” she said in an exclusive interview with CNN Sports. “From that moment, I knew that sport was something that girls did not have easy access.”
And in today’s global climate, a period of conflict and increased political tension, Yousafzai thinks that sports play a more crucial role than ever.
“I think of young people and how their lives are in danger, how children are killed, they are hungry and the rights of girls are kidnapped in Afghanistan,” she said. “By simply looking at the tensions of the whole world, we can only hope and pray for peace and encourage everyone to deposit their arms and think about hope for humanity.
“We are able to dialogue, we are able to come together, and sports, in history, at the present time, are proven to us to be this powerful way of gathering the communities. … We could be competitive, but at the same time, when the game is finished, we can kiss, shake hands and recognize that we are all a humanity.”
A long -standing hunger and committed to the education of women, Yousafzai has become an international renowned figure after being killed in the head by the Taliban while riding a bus from the school.
Airliflé in a hospital in Birmingham, England, for vital treatment, she suffered months of surgeries and rehabilitation before recovering and making the United Kingdom her new house with her family.
Without being discouraged by experience, Yousafzai founded the Malala fund in 2013 to defend educational rights for girls, and the following year became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17.
Recass, launched Tuesday to coincide with its appearance at the Sport Sport Women’s Sport Billie Jean King Power in London, is the latest Yousafzai initiative dedicated to the rights of women and girls. This time, she does it alongside her husband, who has experience in setting up a cricket deductible in Pakistan and working with the country’s cricket council.
“We were looking for an opportunity where we could bring our expertise, our platform for the benefit of female sports in general, simply due to the lack of investments, the lack of opportunities,” said Yousafzai.
Among those who contribute to the initiative as advisers are Billie Jean King and his wife Ilana Kloss, people who “believe in female sports as a business opportunity, and who believe that female sports can help us to promote gender equity,” added Yousafzai.
She and Malik identify the Nwsl And Wgb Like two leagues in which they seek to invest, partly because of the enormous growth potential, said Yousafzai, and in part because they are involved in established leagues can “help us really test the economy and the mission side of our work”.
The approach will be several aspects, by focusing on professional sports of women on recognized and emerging markets, but on the increase in the number of girls involved in sports around the world.
At the age of 14, girls abandoned sports activities double the rate of boys, according to the Female sports foundationDue to limited possibilities, social stigma and a lack of models, among other reasons.
“For female sports everywhere, we must have a different approach to different places,” Malik told CNN Sports. “And obviously, the approach to recess is to treat them as an appropriate company and to prove that it is an excellent profitability analysis, so that more capital arrives and that it grows.”
Far from the conference rooms, Yousafzai, like many of those who grow up in Pakistan, is a fan of passionate cricket. She is also a passionate golfer and admits to having thought of sport “almost every week”, even reluctantly reviving her best shots in Malik after a tour in detail.
From her point of view as a fan, the 27 -year -old woman has seen the impact of athletes like Indiana Fever Star Caitlin Clarkwhich brought an increase in the public to the WNBA. These are figures like Clark, she believes, which can act as models and encourage more girls to have sport, only at the back of their performance.
“They have a huge impact without saying a lot,” said Yousafzai. “I don’t think we have to ask them about each subject and each problem – the fact that they are on the ground and that they are on the ground already changes perspectives.
“It’s enabling girls. It is a powerful message to women, to all of us, that the sky is the limit, and female sports will prosper. We will have more equal chances for women and girls and we can imagine a world where girls are independent. ”