The region’s first female
Football coach is determined to lift other young
Women up through the sport
The 24-year-old Nadiya Nighat is preparing for training in her usual attentive
fashion. A skipping rope is put in place, as are the cones, the bibs and the small goals. She wears a smile on her face because this is a dream come true.
Not that it has been easy to get to this point. Nighat is the first female football coach in Kashmir, the troubled Himalayan region between
Pakistan and
India, and the journey has been full of obstacles. But to see her coach is to witness what perseverance can do.