ANANTNAG: Hailing from a small village in Anantnag town, armed with education and dedication, Sajad Ahmad Mir has become a ray of hope for many female students who want to excel in sports and make it their career choices. His journey from a sports student to national level coach is reshaping the lives of many students through games.
Mir, a Physical Education Teacher in the department of Youth Services & Sports District Anantnag believes that success is not about gaining leadership but it is about empowering people through sports. “It is said that the true measure of success is the number of people touched and transformed by one’s success,” he is living his life to this definition of success. Nagpur International marathon player, National Level player in Netball, Softball and State Level in cricket and former National Level coach of the cricket team of JKUT, Mir has many certificates in his kitty.
Starting his journey as a Physical education Teacher in the year April 2010 from GMS Monghall, Sajad Ahmed was later transferred to Govt. Girls Model Higher Secondary School Ranibagh in the heart of Anantnag town. Under the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao program launched by the Government of India in 2015, Mir initiated a curriculum for the students, under which he transformed the lives of thousands of students by encouraging them to join Sports, NCC and other curricular activities.
Recalling the earlier days of his career as a physical education teacher, he remembers how schools lacked infrastructure despite students being very active and passionate about sports and NCC. So far, he has successfully organized more than 500 plus awareness campaigns in sports category in remote villages of Kashmir Valley which remained unconnected to roads, due to extreme terrain conditions.
Assisted by his colleagues, he walked miles through the forest to reach isolated villages and spread awareness. “In order to convince and persuade parents to send their wards for national level games, our team conducted a door to door campaign, convincing parents to encourage and support their daughters to join Sports, NCC and cultural activities. We organized many sports tournaments so that government schools could find potential players, organized them into a team, and trained them to play at Zone, District, UT and ultimately at National Level”, he said.
His students have brought laurels at the District, UT and National Level in Cricket, Netball, Throw Ball, Basketball, Softball, Chess, Kho-Kho, Table Tennis, Martial Art, Karate, NCC and cultural activities and are grateful to his mentorship. Meanwhile, he continues to transform the lives of female students, Govt. School Students in the region. Ruby Syed, a Ranji Cricket Player, said: “What I have achieved is only because of my mentor Sajad Sir & I would not forget how he changed my entire life” says Ruby Syed. She is presently Ranji Player and a coach for Young Girls in Sports.