The weightlifters on Iraq’s national women’s team train hard every day, both to bring home the medals and to help ease the financial burden of running a home.
Jerking weights heavier than themselves at a rundown gym in Baghdad’s conservative Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City, the young women and girls come together for three hours every day.
The girls are focused as they work out between the small gym’s peeling pale mint walls, one of which is adorned with a giant painted Iraqi flag.
With their dark hair in high buns and dressed in team green tracksuit tops, black shorts and leggings, they raise an arm and turn from side to side to warm up.
Then they work out hanging from a pull-up bar, before moving to different mats to get down to the business of lifting weights.
“To those who say weightlifting is not for girls, I say we can do everything men do,” says Huda Salim al-Saedi, 20, patting chalk powder from her hands.
“I challenge men to lift weights and I’m proud of it,” says the weightlifter, her eyebrows trimmed neatly and a black bandana keeping her hair from falling in her face.
Huda was one of the first to be recruited when coach Abbas Ahmed in 2011 set out to create Iraq’s first national female weightlifting team.
At first, it was an uphill battle.
Society’s rejection
“It was very, very hard,” says the former men’s coach, who is now 54.
“Society rejected the idea,” with conservatives considering the sport inappropriate for women and girls.
There was also no state funding for the project.
So Ahmed first approached families whose members were already fans of the sport.
Huda seemed like an ideal candidate. She had practised Taekwondo since the age of eight and had long been a fan of weightlifting on television.
Today, she’s a cornerstone of the Iraqi women’s team and its most promising member.
Huda helped to train her younger sister Hadeel Salem, 17, in weightlifting.
(AFP)
Huda helped to train her sister Hadeel, who just turned 17, and last year both of them competed in Asian championships.
The 20-year-old won bronze in the “snatch” discipline in her category at the Asian Championships in Turkmenistan, lifting 90 kilos in one swift motion above her head. She finished first overall at the Asian Junior Championship in Nepal.
Her younger sister Hadeel also competed there taking 10th place lifting 68 kilos in the “snatch,” while in another competition in Kathmandu, the Asian Youth Championships, she came in fourth overall.
But beyond making their relatives proud, Huda and Hadeel’s accomplishments have also provided their family with some financial security.
“Thanks to weightlifting, I have a salary and money to cover my family’s needs every month,” Huda says, with her sister’s pay cheque also helping make ends meet.
‘Welcomed as heroes’
Iraq’s national women’s weightlifting team is sponsored by the police club that pays each member a monthly salary of $400 to $800.
(AFP)
The women’s team is sponsored by the police club, which pays each of its eight members a monthly salary of $400 to $800 — a considerable sum for some families.
If Huda and Hadeel did not receive support from the club, their family could not pay their monthly rent of some $330, their father Salim Noma says.
Over time, he says, support has grown for the girls in the conservative neighbourhood.
“Everybody has ended up supporting them. They’re welcomed as heroes every time they return from a competition,” says Noma as he watches his daughters train.
Female weightlifting has provided an unexpected source of pride — and safety net — for some families in the working-class neighbourhood.
Loujain Hazem, 15, gave up her studies to focus on the sport, winning a silver medal at the West Asia championships in Jordan last year.
“Our coach has taught us determination and perseverence,” she says.
“I’m sure our efforts will pay off, in terms of both weightlifting and money.”
The younger generation is also dreaming big.
Every day after shool, the father of 12-year-old Roqaya picks her up and they weave through the traffic jams of Baghdad on his moped to the gym in Sadr City.
With her hair tied in a pink bow, she lifts two large red weights above her head.
“I hope one day to take part in the Olympics,” says Roqaya, already aiming high.
I have personal experience with how the disease can affect not only the patient, but also family and friends. When I was about 11 or 12, I got really interested in using technology for social good to help other people around the world,” says Yang, who is now 14.
In her app under development, called Timeless, Alzheimer’s patients can scroll through photos of friends and family, and the app will tell them who the person is and how they’re related to the patient using facial recognition tech. If a patient doesn’t recognize someone in the same room, they can take a picture and the tech will also try to automatically identify them.
“I saw a lot of things about how AI and facial recognition were really evolving and being applied in more and more areas, especially healthcare,” she says. She partnered with mentors at the tech company Kairos, which makes the facial recognition software that is now used by the app, and learned to code for the iPhone for the first time.The app also includes a simple reminder screen that lists appointments for the day, along with a simple contacts screen that shows photos of family members along with names. If a patient tries to call a contact repeatedly–something that can sometimes happen because of the disease–the app will flash a quick reminder: “Are you sure you want to call? You just called less than five minutes ago.” A “me” page shows the patient’s own name, age, phone number, and address.
A caregiver maintains some of the other parts of the app, including putting events on the daily calendar, and inviting friends and family to send an initial set of photos that the facial recognition algorithm can use to learn to identify them.
The app is still in development, and Yang doesn’t yet have proof that it will work. In a crowdfunding campaign, she’s raising money to take the next step of piloting it with patients. But she is optimistic that it can help, especially if introduced to someone in the early stages of the disease.
“There are no apps on the market that really help Alzheimer’s patients with their daily lives,” she says. “A lot of times people think that it’s not going to help, or the elderly can’t really use technology, but in fact, if you strategically introduce it to them, it’s actually a possibility and can really benefit their lives.”
Katherine Possin, an associate professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center who was not involved with the project, agrees. “It can be hard for somebody who has a lot of cognitive impairment or memory problems to learn a new technology or software,” Possin says. “But if somebody’s mild in their disease, and with support from their caregiver, it’s possible that if the app is simple enough that they can learn to use it through repetition and practice.”
Scrolling through the labeled photos, Possin says, can be a type of social activity for the patient, helping keep family members and friends in mind. It also could strengthen memory. “I think it can be very helpful for patients to rehearse memories that are important to them–having a chance to rehearse that can strengthen those memories and make them stronger and make them more resilient in the face of the disease.”
Yang recently shared her story on a podcast called Sincerely Hueman.