?Representatives of the Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Award for Woman Athletes had a fruitful meeting with Bahrain Olympic Committee member Shaikha Hayat bint Abdulaziz Al Khalifa yesterday (Monday, October 13).
The meeting was part of the UAE delegation’s three-day visit to Bahrain, hosted by the Bahrain Olympic Committee, to promote the award.
During the meeting, Shaikha Hayat welcomed the visiting delegation and lauded the contributions of Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, Chairperson of the General Women’s Union (GWU), Chairwoman of the Family Development Foundation (FDF) and President of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, to support ports women in the GCC and Arab world.
Shaikha Hayat noted that the Bahrain Olympic Committee is pleased to have the award delegation around to introduce its conditions and objectives to its sports associations and clubs.
The programme of the UAE delegation’s visit also includes several meeting with Bahraini athletes, coaches, administrators and media personnel.
General coordinator of the award Khawla Al Muhairi is heading the UAE delegation, which also has Nada Al Shaibani and Maryam Al Rifai.
Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Award for Women Athletes, the world’s biggest award of its kind, offers individual winners including those with special needs, and corporate winners, a total purse of Dh 2.4 million (BD240,000) for its nine categories.
The award sheds the light on the achievements of Arab women in various fields of sports, and seeks to document such achievements in accordance with the international standards in such field, in addition to supporting and highlighting the achievements of Arab women in the field of competitive sport, locally and internationally, and encouraging and motivating Arab women in the field of the scientific research on sports, to allow the impact of her success to reach beyond the horizons of sports excellence and creation.
There are three levels in the award – the individual level, which consist of five categories, namely excellent athlete woman, disabled woman, trainer woman, excellent media woman and excellent athlete woman manager.
The second is the foundations and unions level consisting of 4 categories, excellent media work in woman sports, developing beginners, sponsorship and marketing, developing teams and effective participation, while the last is the Sports Personality of the Year award.
The award aims at motivating women to develop their capabilities and skills in the various fields of sport to enable them to reach more achievements and attain excellence in creation, and to encouraging women in general and women with disabilities to join different types of sports and to achieve excellence, superiority and leadership, creating a proper framework to support and develop the women’s sporting sector in the UAE and in Arab countries, in general.