A Sporting Chance
Probably most people who play sport professionally would claim that it’s their life, but for Syrian sports coach Reem* this is literally true.
Speaking as the guest at the 31ST Prix Bayeux Awards for war correspondents, she explained how basketball – a pastime for some – had been a lifeline for her.
It all started when her older brother became the coach of her village team, and she joined. Five more girls joined, and before long their team won the regional championships.
At eighteen she went to university to study economics and joined one of the most prestigious teams in Syria, then played professionally for twelve years, When her husband’s job obliged them to move to Oman, she started a new team and found work at a school, despite the fact that women and girls playing sport was something of a rarity there.
They returned to Syria in 2010, and Reem was delighted to be reunited with friends and family, and pick up the threads of her old life. But it was not to last. In March 2011, a bomb fell right next to her.
The family fled, first back to Oman, Then to Turkey, before arriving in France as political refugees in 2018. ‘We had to start again from scratch.’
Positive and energetic though she may be, Reem cannot help but regret the impact these turbulent years have had on her children, who for a long time felt afraid to go out on their own. She also misses the friends and family she left behind in Syria, whose safety she fears for, and whose daily lives are constrained by the need to keep below the radar at all times.
But Neem did not dwell on any of this in her speech to the students and other guests at the awards ceremony. What she wanted to focus on was how sport had enabled her to transcend the language barrier when the family finally settled In Strasbourg.
The first weeks were hard, but she was determined to help her children find their place in this new world. ‘Going to basketball training was the only thing that would get my daughter out of the door’, so Reem went to check out the local club, the Strasbourg Dragonflies. There she met someone who changed everything: Claude Weber, the club’s president, who held out his hand and welcomed her.
Once he realised the level at which she had been playing, he arranged for her to take all the tests she would need to pass to become a coach. Soon she was running training sessions for all ages, in all types of basketball (including ‘basketronik’, practising basket ball to music, which I wouldn’t mind having a go at myself).
In 2023, Reem became one of the first intake of people to receive the Diploma in Sports Inclusion, a qualification established in 2018 by the Minister of Sport. Her goal now is to pay forward Weber’s encouragement by working with migrants who find themselves, like her, strangers in a strange land on arriving in France.
Neem’s story embodies the best in sport: not ruthless competition, but resilience, energy and teamwork.
*She goes only by her forename to protect her family.
Neem certainly does embody the best in sport. What an inspiring story, but chilling that she has to protect her family.
Thanks Verity.
Makes me wish I was a bit more sporty!