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Sporting Sisters: Stories of Muslim Women in Sport

PROJECT EVALUATION REPORT

A Heritage Lottery Fund Young Roots Programme Project

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1. About Sporting Sisters

Why we wanted to run this project

Sporting Sisters: Stories of Muslim Women in Sport, was a project initiated by IARS volunteers, some of whom were young Muslim women, who were working on a research project about the legacy of the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games. They had many conversations about the fact that Muslim women were until very recently almost invisible in sport. They wanted to know if this was really true and to investigate whether there was a history of Muslim women in sport and if not to spark a debate about the topic and change people’s attitudes and preserve their history and heritage. We also wanted the opportunity to work with a heritage organisation, in this case The Women’s Library.

The 2012 Olympic Games were the inspiration for the project as they mark a cultural watershed in London and the UK’s history. In the 60 years since London hosted the 1948 Olympic Games, the role and place of Muslim women in the UK has changed from an invisible minority to being at the forefront of all aspects of British society. IARS proposed this project in order to provide a platform for the voices of Muslim women in the UK and to enable young Muslim women to tell this story through an innovative youth-led heritage project.

What we hoped to achieve

Through a youth-led methodology, to explore, document and preserve the heritage of British Muslim women’s participation in sporting events covering the period of 1948-today.

Skill-up and provide an opportunity to young Muslim women to lead on the project and to learn, reflect and document their 60 years history in sports.

To ensure that amidst the sporting achievements of the Games that the history and culture of one of the UK’s minority groups is not forgotten but documented, disseminated and celebrated.

Create bonds between Muslim women of different ages and cultural backgrounds and encourage the exchange of ideas, historical facts and historical challenges.

To raise awareness of the changing role of Muslim women in society and highlight their contribution to the UK.

How we planned to achieve our aims

Delivering a training and skills development programme for 8 young Muslim women volunteering on the project.

Enabling project volunteers to carry out interviews with Muslim women.

Presenting the project’s findings as a youth-led short film comprised of archive images with voice over narratives from the project’s young Muslim women and extracts from interviews.

Exhibiting the film at The Women’s Library, which houses the most extensive collection of women’s history in the UK, and create links with other Heritage Bodies.

2. Our project methodology

One of the aims of our project was to let the young project participants take the lead in finding out about and documenting the topic. We wanted the young women to direct the project based on their ideas and experiences and to use their knowledge of their own communities to inform the fieldwork activities.

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We incorporated a training and skills development programme into the project in order to empower and equip the volunteers with the skills and knowledge required to conduct a heritage project of this nature. The focus of the research was heavily influenced by the participants’ interests.

Based on our feasibility study, we assumed that there would be limited primary and secondary sources on the topic of Muslim women in sport. Therefore, in addition to searches for studies on the topic and archival searches in the British Library and The Women’s library for primary sources, we decided to conduct interviews with different generations of Muslim women.

Sampling Our aim was to recruit 20-30 Muslim women from East London as interviewees, split equally between three age groups, 12 – 18, 19 – 40, 41 +. The goal was to complete 10 interviews. The reason why we aimed to actually complete a lower number of interviews was because in our past experience we have found that interviewees may not turn up on the day, they may refuse consent on the day to being filmed or recorded, or they may decide afterwards that they don’t want anyone to see or hear their recordings. Challenges and how we overcame them

Whilst carrying out archival research at The Women’s Library, the volunteers discovered that there were very few archival images of Muslim women playing sport. However, there were lots of images that documented the changes to women’s involvement in sport more generally. They decided to include these images as they were interested in exploring how women’s lives have changed over the past 60 years and to explore how changes for women more generally may have impacted on Muslim women.

Whilst conducting the fieldwork, the volunteers encountered some challenges to conducting interviews with older Muslim women. Despite the volunteers’ initial hopes, it became apparent that

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cultural practices meant that older Muslim women did not feel comfortable being featured in the film.

Initially the group thought that they could overcome this hurdle by recording the women’s voices rather than filming the interviews, however, the women they spoke to still did not wish to be involved in the project. It was explained to us that in some cases male family members would have seen the women’s involvement in the film as inappropriate. This fact in itself is an interesting finding and shows that the attitudes of Muslim women differ vastly depending upon their generation.

As a result of not being able to access older Muslim women to interview the group had to change their approach. Instead they interviewed a woman who runs a sports group for older Muslim women and she informed them of the types of sport the women are interested in and what motivates them to take part. The group were also able to incorporate photographs of a cycling group for older Muslim women that did not show the participants’ faces. The volunteers found it much easier to engage younger Muslim women in the interviewing process as they were generally more at ease with being on camera.

It was also the case that the volunteers did encounter a young Muslim woman who was interested in contributing to the film but did not want her face shown on camera. The group sought advice from a professional documentary film maker who advised them to conduct the interview by filming the young woman’s hands instead of her face.

Limitations

A lack of interviews with older Muslim women meant that the there was a gap in knowledge regarding the changing views of Muslim women regarding sport. An abundance of interviews with young Muslim women meant that the film became about capturing contemporary Muslim women’s views on sport in 2012 and trying to explain how changing heritage and culture had made an impact on their participation in sport. The volunteers wanted the film to be a snapshot of British Muslim women’s views on sport in 2012 and to preserve this for future generations to look back on and see how life has changed in British society. For the young Muslim women making the film, it also became important that the film not only engage other young people in heritage but that it encourage more Muslim women of all ages to participate in sport.

In trying to mitigate the limitations of the fieldwork, we carried out additional background research and produced an accompanying e-learning resource. The resource puts the film in a historical

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context and prompts readers to think about the changing role of Muslim women in society and in sport.

3. Project Activities

Volunteer recruitment

The project ran from July 2011 to May 2012 and engaged ten young women as volunteers for the entire period. Two of the volunteers who wanted to take a leadership role were also designated IARS Research Associates. As a youth-led project, it was crucial that the project was led by young Muslim women themselves and the Research Associate positions enabled two young women to gain project management and leadership experience.

All the volunteers were Muslim women aged between 16-25. Five were unemployed, four were in formal education and one was employed on a part-time basis. The volunteers were from across London and from a range of cultural backgrounds:

Training

In order to undertake this investigation the young Muslim women involved received a range of training and support. In September 2011 London Metropolitan University provided the group with training on the following areas:

1) Introduction to Oral History 2) Introduction to Documentary film making

and use of The Women’s Library 3) Theory and practice of interviewing,

practice interviews, styles of documentary film making, basic camera work and sound recording

4) How to film an interview and visual cutaways, filming practice interviews, planning for project interviews

5) Historical research training (total training delivered over 5 days)

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Ethnicity Pakistani Bangladeshi

Black African Middle Eastern

Asian other

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5 1

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Borough of residence Redbridge Tower Hamlets

Hackney Newham

Southwark Harrow

Lambeth

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Fieldwork

Following this training, the young women were supported by IARS to carry out their interviews and develop their youth-led film. 22 interviews were arranged, but some participants withdrew their involvement from the project at the last minute or simply did not turn up on the day.

During October-January 2012 the group conducted 14 interviews with a range of women from the Muslim community and members of the public, including a Sports Programme Manager for a women’s sports club, Muslim women who take part in sports on a daily basis to keep fit as well as Muslim women who participate in sports professionally. Furthermore, they interviewed women who have undertaken academic research into Muslim women’s participation in sport in order to draw on their expertise in this area. They also arranged to take pictures of a Muslim sports woman and a cycling group for older Muslim women.

Although 14 interviews took place, only 9 are included in the final film. This is due to issues relating to parental consent and the quality of the filming.

The majority of filming took place in east London, as it is the area of the capital that has the largest Muslim community.

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The Sporting Sisters film

When all the interviews had been completed, the volunteers viewed and analysed all of the interviews. They then created a storyboard for the film and spent four days editing the footage at London Metropolitan University with the help of a film tutor, Suzanne Cohen. After these four days it became apparent that they still needed to go and film more cut-away shots and vox pop interviews. It was also decided at this stage that they would feature in the film and they needed to write and film these sections. This extra filming took 6 weeks to arrange and the volunteers then completed the editing using the editing suite at London Metropolitan University.

The final film, entitled Sporting Sisters: Stories of Muslim Women in Sport, explores how fashion, specialist women’s groups and cultural values have adapted to enable Muslim women to get involved in a range of sports, from cycling to boxing. The film also reveals the complexities and challenges many Muslim in the UK often face when trying to participate in sport.

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Sporting Sisters e-learning resource

In order to provide more historical context for the Sporting Sisters film, we created a comprehensive e-learning resource. It includes information about the project, more of the archival images and also more in-depth analysis of the historical changes in women’s participation in society and sport.

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Sporting Sisters launch event

In order to launch the film and promote the learning from the project, we arranged a premier event on the 1st May 2012 at The Women’s Library. The event included a presentation by the young Muslim women who led on the project, short presentations by guest speakers and a screening of the film, which was followed by a Q&A.

The guest speakers were Dr Aisha Ahmad, an academic from Birmingham University who specialises on the topic of Muslim women’s participation in sport and Sophia Rashid, a Muslim sportswoman who spoke about her personal experiences. The event was a chance to raise awareness of the topic amongst local school students and community groups and to celebrate the achievement of the young women involved. The full programme can be found in the appendix.

The venue capacity at The Women’s Library was 85 and on the day 84 people attended the event including two groups of school children from Bethnal Green Academy and Highbury Fields School. 80 of the attenders were female. The breakdown in ethnicity of attendees can be found in the chart below.

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Archiving

The film Sporting Sisters has been archived at The Women’s Library. We are also in the process of archiving the film and other unedited footage at the London Metropolitan Archives where we hope for the footage to be archived and made available for academic and research purposes.

Disseminating the film

The film and learning resource have been uploaded to Youtube and made available on the IARS website. We have promoted the availability of the film and learning resource via social media and our monthly newsletter, which goes out to over 1000 individuals and organisations. The film and learning resource have also been disseminated to nearly 100 schools and community groups in London. This means that the film has been shared with young people who were not directly involved with the project and the impact of the project has been widened.

4. The difference that our project made

Preserving heritage and culture

British Muslim women in sport has not been widely researched or documented. Through our film and learning resource we have recorded and preserved the hidden stories and views of Muslim women for future generations, to ensure that the heritage of one of the UK’s minority groups is not

White British 33%

White european

5%

White Other 3%

Bangladeshi 21%

Asian British 3%

Indian 5%

Pakistani 8%

Asian Other 3%

African 5%

Black British 10%

Latin American 3%

Mixed ethnicity 3%

Ethnicity of Sporting Sisters Launch Attendees

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forgotten. Throughout the project we have built a bank of knowledge about British Muslim women’s participation in sport and this has been captured in and widely disseminated through our film and learning resource, which are available freely on the IARS website and other online platforms, including Prezi.com. A number of key themes came out of the investigation, which are explored in the film. Most of these related to barriers which limit Muslim women’s participation in sport, such as sports facilities, clothing, culture and religion.

Culture and religion: One of the main findings of Sporting Sisters is that it is not primarily the religious and cultural barriers of Islam that prevent Muslim women from participating in sport. Instead, the film reveals the barriers Muslim women face coming from opposing directions: both the Islamic values they identify with and the particular form that popular sport has taken in the West. The women interviewed in the film argue that Islam does not discourage sport for women, and in fact urges its followers – both male and female – to pursue physical activity provided it does not compromise other Islamic values. While it is often implied that Islam prevents female involvement in sport, the documentary shows how the cultural etiquette of physical activity in the UK has often been at odds with these values and not enough has been done to overcome this. Clothing: The issue of appropriate clothing is considered in the film in some detail. Whilst there has been debate across Europe about the alleged health and safety problems thrown up by Muslim women and girls wearing the hijab in sport, the issue of clothing is ultimately shown to be a superficial problem. The ‘burkini’ is discussed, as are other head-wear garments, all of which are shown to be very easy and straightforward ways for Muslim women to preserve their modesty whilst being able to participate fully in sport without any health and safety concerns. Design is highlighted as a tool for “mediating these tensions” by creating garments that allow Muslim women to fit in physically and aesthetically with other non-Muslim participants without compromising any of their values. Lack of Facilities: Sporting Sisters reveals how easy it is to further the participation of Muslim women in sport by simply creating the right conditions for women to participate affordably and conveniently, and in a way that supports their cultural commitments. One example given is the inclusion of segregated women-only kickboxing clubs, and support for programs that integrate Muslim women into sports such as Badminton and Cycling, that place less demands on clothing and levels of exertion. In the case of all female classes, privacy has been cited as an important tool in making the demands for female modesty compatible with participation in sport. Importance of Sport: The inclusion of Muslim women in sport and other forms of physical activity is presented as a major health priority that is important irrespective of differences in cultural demands. It is stressed that there are simple ways of overcoming the apparent tensions between Islamic culture and Western sport practices.

Impact on the volunteers Our aim was to empower and skill-up young Muslim women in order to enable them to tell the story of British Muslim women in sport. By the end of the project the volunteers felt that they had gained practical skills from the training and from conducting the fieldwork and were clear on how their involvement in the project had been beneficial for them as individuals.

At the beginning of the project we asked the volunteers to fill in an online questionnaire about what they wanted to achieve during the project, this is what some of them said

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‘[I want to] to gain a deeper understanding and an objective outlook upon the lives of Muslim women in sports and hopefully break some of the stereotypes that continue to be associated with Muslim women in general. I also aim to use this experience as a means of building upon my strengths, by facing challenging issues and obstacles head on’.

‘[To gain] improved facilitation skills and greater confidence and gain experience of having to come up with a creative oral history project from research findings’.

‘[I want to gain] the ability to carry out my own research and [to be] able to carry out my own interviews’.

The training successfully enabled them to understand how to conduct oral history interviews and how to use the camera equipment. After the training, the volunteers were asked to fill in an anonymous evaluation questionnaire. All of the volunteers rated the training as either ‘Excellent’ or ‘Very useful’. 80% of the group rated the training materials as ‘very useful’ and rated their improved knowledge at 2 (where 1 is the most improved and 5 is the least improved). We asked them to comment on what they liked most about the training:

‘The practical training of using the cameras for interviewing purposes’

‘Most of the sessions were practical and very engaging’

‘[I enjoyed the] presentation in The Women’s Library based on articles about Muslim women’s participation in sport’

At the end of the project we asked them to reflect upon the skills that they had gained:

‘I’ve progressed in terms of using the camera equipment and carrying out actual interviews’

‘I now know how to operate a camera, and organise and coordinate meetings’

‘I feel like I’ve progressed in meeting facilitation skills’

‘I know more about research methods, such as how to use archive materials’

At the beginning and end of the project we also asked the group to assess their levels of self-confidence and communication skills. At the beginning of the project 60% of the group rated their self-confidence as between 8-10/10 (1 being the lowest, 10 being the highest). Towards the end of the project, 80% of them rated their confidence between 8-10/10 on the same scale. Likewise at the beginning of the project, 80% of the group rated their communication skills as between 7-10/10 and by the end of the project 91% of them rated their communication skills as 7-10/10.

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To provide us with a more in-depth understanding of the impact of the project upon the volunteers we asked some of them to write about their experiences:

‘With support from IARS and London Metropolitan University, Zeenat and I oversaw the direction of the project, which was very exciting. IARS has changed my perspective on my career path. Having

worked on the project, I now want to go into documentary film making and research, something that I would not have found out if it were not for this project! I’ve been really inspired by the film we have produced, I think it’s worked out really well. I now really want to make my own documentaries on topics that educate and make people think’, (Safia, 20).

‘Before I came into this, I had very low expectations of finding any Muslim women participating in sport. The title of the project intrigued me, especially as there was not extensive research done on this. Working on the project has made me feel very inspired, as I believe this project is very encouraging for Muslim women to increase their participation in sports’ (Eirteqa, 22).

'Working with young Muslim women in conducting oral history interviews on this niche topic and making a heritage film has been an interesting experience, and not without its challenges. This has been an excellent learning experience in working as a team, exploring social history and learning diverse skills from interviewing to film editing. Not to mention learning how to kickbox too!' (Zeenat,22).

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Raising awareness and challenging stereotypes with the public

The film fills a gap in the media coverage of Muslim women’s participation in sport and aims to improve the general public’s understanding of their participation.

Through the inclusion of interviews with Muslim women from different cultural backgrounds, the film aims to increase cultural awareness of Muslim women in the UK. Muslim women in the film are not presented as a homogenous group, but as individuals and the film aims to develop more respectful and less stereotypical views of Muslim women in the UK.

We asked attendees of our event to fill in a questionnaire to capture their views on the event. Approximately ¼ of attendees filled in the questionnaire. Of those surveyed, 63% rated the event either ‘Excellent’ or ‘Very Good’.

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How did you find the event overall?

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88% of attendees surveyed rated the film either ‘Excellent’ ‘Very good’ or ‘Good’. 92% rated the talk afterwards either ‘Excellent’ ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’.

“Very interesting insight into the issues faced by Muslim women in sports” (Delegate).

“The film provided a good opening for a topic that is rarely spoken about” (Young female).

When asked what she liked most, one inspired young woman wrote “The young ladies confidence and

hard work! You’re amazing” (Young female).

“Film was very good and I thoroughly enjoyed the varied discussions” (Young female).

“Liked the cohesive approach to challenging barriers” (Delegate).

The film has also been uploaded onto YouTube and in less than a month has received over 800 views. Furthermore, the film, along with a learning resource, has been disseminated to nearly 100 schools and community groups in London, who had previous expressed an interest in the project. Although we cannot strictly evaluate the impact of this dissemination yet, we envisage that the film and learning resource will be of value and inspiration to the children and young people that watch it.

The impact of the project on IARS

This was the first project at IARS that focused on exclusively on women and it was also the first

project at IARS that focused on a faith group. Running the project gave the staff team such a boost in

confidence in working with diverse groups that as a direct result we applied for and have no received

a grant to carry out another women-led project, this time looking at refugee and asylum seeking

women.

This project was also the first opportunity for IARS to really get to grips with film as a medium to

engage young people and express research on complex topics, such as heritage and culture. We

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Please rate the following sections of the day (please tick as appropriate)

Film

Talk afterwards

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have had such overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding the project and the film that we are

extremely keen to develop more projects run in a similar way.

Finally, the project has helped attract a lot of attention to the organisation. From the promotion of

the film and the event we estimate at this stage that the project has brought at least 5,000 extra

visitors to the IARS website over the past year.

5. Review

What worked well

The youth-led element of this project was a big success. The subject matter and the possibility of

steering the project really captivated the imagination of the project volunteers, who committed

themselves to the project for a whole year. It is also clear from the feedback (see above) from the

volunteers that their involvement had a profound impact on their sense of identity and also their

confidence in their career prospects.

The partnership between IARS, London Metropolitan University and The Women’s Library was a

success. The three organisation’s expertise in youth-led projects, film making and history enabled us

to offer a complete wrap-around package of support and learning for the volunteers, to enable them

to have the best tools to deliver their research project.

Finally, the film element of the project was a success. Over 1,000 people have already seen the film,

we were oversubscribed for bookings to the film’s launch, over 100 schools requested to use the film

upon its completion and we have very positive feedback from people who have seen it. It is clearly a

strong medium for communicating complex topics in a straight forward and engaging way to a wide

variety of audiences.

How much of the difference would have happened anyway

Heritage, culture and knowledge: the topic of Muslim women in sport is very particular, and it is

improbable that a similar project, led by young Muslim women would have been developed by

someone else. Likewise, the support package provided to volunteers was unique in its combination

of oral history, archival research, film making, and camera work and editing. Therefore the impact

the project had on the individual volunteers was distinctive to this project.

What we would do differently

Whilst the vast majority of the project went according to plan, there were challenges with recruiting

the sample of older Muslim women. This had a knock on effect on the content of the film due to a

reduced amount of historical information to work with. If we were to run this project again, we

would make sure at the outset to engage charities and community groups and specialise in working

with and providing activities to older Muslim women, to enable us and the volunteers the time to

build up a rapport with interviewees.

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6. Appendix: Sporting Sisters Launch Programme

Sporting Sisters: Stories of Muslim Women in Sport 1 May, 15:00, Women’s Library, 25 Old Castle Street, London, E1 7NT

Programme

Registration…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 15:00

Introduction by the film makers…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 15:15

* Zeenat Rahim, film maker * Safia Adbullah, film maker

* Eirteqa Sultan, film maker

Screening…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 15:25

Panel discussion…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…. 15:40

*Zeenat Rahim, film maker *Safia Adbullah, film maker *Sophia Rashid, Women United AFC Treasurer

*Holly Challenger, IARS Project Co-ordinator *Dr. Jenny Harding, Reader in Media, Information and Communications, London Metropolitan University

Question and Answer…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 16:10

Close…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..… 16:30

*Prof. John Gabriel, Prof. of Sociology and Head of Department of Sociology and Applied Social Sciences

*Dr. Theo Gavrielides, IARS Director

*John Palmer, IARS Chair

Refreshments…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..….. 16:40

Thank you for attending this free event. Please consider donating to IARS so that it may continue working with young Londoners to achieve their potential