The first prize at the International Cheerleading Festival in Russia was won by five Bengali girls from a slum area in Karachi.
Since the coronavirus shut down global travel, the girls from Machar Colony were unable to participate. The festival was staged online and video submissions were received instead. The Imkaan Welfare Group squad joined the contest and won the free junior cheer category.
IWO Director Tahera Hasan said the Imkaans gymnastics team was able to participate in the International Cheerleading Festival held in Russia this year and won first place in the junior category in team cheer freestyle.
She said in a statement on Twitter, “We were able to participate because the event was online and the lack of identity documents was not a challenge for us. We, at Imkaan are delighted with this news and hope that we will be able to address statelessness issues in order to allow these children to participate internationally and nationally.”
She further said that this victory is a reinforcement of our confidence in their potential and our dedication to advocating equal opportunity for children regardless of their parents’ or grandparents’ backgrounds.
IWO Director Tahera Hasan said while speaking to a media outlet that they are proud of the efforts made by these young girls and their team. Nonetheless, she said that the government will not even going to recognize them as its citizens.
These girls are stateless and they are not accepted as people by any country and they have no identification. They are not given identification cards or passports and are unable to move and return to another country.
Machhar Colony is the largest and most densely populated informal settlement in Karachi and is home to 150,000 individuals. There are wonderful Bengali-speaking residents of the Machhar Colony.
The IWO was founded in 2014 and established a clinic for legal aid that focuses on issues related to lack of identity. The organization invests in a wide variety of programs, including a children’s learning and leisure center, a maternity home and a community health center.
