Nehad's Presentation at the Asia-Pacific Football and Futsal Seminar

One of the delights of being involved in University education is the opportunity to supervise PhD students.
I am very fortunate to have Nehad Makhadmeh as one of my supervisees.
Nehad is presenting some of her research at this weekend’s inaugural Football and Futsal multidisciplinary seminar at Victoria University. The seminar is hosted by the University’s Institute of Sport, Exercise and Active Living.
The program can be found here.
There are four invited speakers at the seminar (David Tucker, Martin Buchheit, Carlo Castagna, and Darren Burgess).
Nehad is looking at talent identification and development in women’s football in Jordan.
She is attending the conference on a weekend that coincides with the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. The United Nations recognises the potential of sport to contribute to:

education, health and physical fitness, as well as to the development of other important life skills, including confidence, self-esteem, teamwork, cooperation, social interaction, communication, tolerance and peaceful conflict resolution.

The United Nations proposes that “Ultimately, sport has the potential to help us reach our development goals, to promote understanding and to achieve sustainable peace”.
Nehad’s research is fascinating in its own right. It is ground-breaking research in Jordan and I am delighted that a female researcher with a passion for coaching and teaching is doing this research.
In the last year, Nehad’s research has added a further dimension. Her home town, and one of the two centres for her research in Jordan, is Al Ramtha. It is very close to the Syrian border. This is an Al Jazeera report about Al Ramtha and the impact of refugees on the social fabric of the city. One estimate puts the number of Syrian refugees in Jordan at 577,786. It is possible that there are 200,000 refugees in and around Al Ramtha.
One of the pictures in Nehad’s presentation is from a refugee camp in Jordan. It was taken by Caroline Gluck of Oxfam.

Nehad and I think this image puts her research work into context. It resonates very powerfully with the goals of International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.
I do hope Nehad enjoys presenting her work and sharing her story with those who will be at the seminar.
This is a draft copy of her presentation TID.

Photo Credits

Nehad Makhadmeh  (Keith Lyons, CC BY 3.0)
Getting Water (Caroline Gluck, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)