Tibetan National Sports Association organised the First Women Football Match!

Dharamshala Jue10: The Vice President of Tibetan Women’s Association Ms. Tsering Dolma and the Project Officer Ms. Tenzin Choezin attended the Opening Ceremony of the first Women Football Tournament organized by Tibetan National Sports Association on the 9th of June, 2016. The tournament will be held from 9th-12th of June, 2016 and the matches will be among four teams; one from Punjab, two from Himachal and last but not the least our Tibetan Women’s team.

The Chief Guest for the opening ceremony was the Vice-President of Tibetan Parliament in Exile Ven. Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok la. It kicks started with the lining up of all the participating teams in their uniform and then followed by the singing of Tibetan/Indian National anthems. After which the General Secretary of TNSA gave a brief introductory speech for the audiences and finally the Chief Guest added spark to the event with his gracious speech in Tibetan/Hindi positively highlighting the Women’s Empowerment.
Right after the speech, the real football tournament begun, and the first match were between the Punjab team and Tibetan team. The first day saw the Tibetan teams grouping in unity to play against their opponent team and it was a very proud moment to see our team win over one of the high-target teams. In the next match, the Khad Distt lost the game to the other Himachal team with 5-0.
The days tournament was wrapped up to follow more matches for the next day but it was indeed a very proud feeling to see the young Tibetan women slowly coming in terms with erasing the stereotypes of Football for boys and dolls for girls. It really was a Women’s Empowering moment and we believe that many more is to come.