Empowering Women in Egypt Through Guardian Girls Karate

On January 28th in the morning, the Guardian Girls Women's Karate Seminar was hosted by the World Karate Federation (WKF), Koyamada International Foundation (KIF) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Cairo, Egypt to empower a group of Egyptian girls and women who have gathered from across Egypt to learn a self-defense training.

With Commonwealth champion Amy Connell of Scotland and Olympic Games medalist Giana Farouk of Egypt as instructors, the seminar gathered a group of young women from Egypt who, over two hours, had the opportunity to learn simple yet effective Karate movements to face the most common situations of Gender-Based Violence.

WKF Instructor Amy Connell said:

“The first seminar of the Guardian Girls Global Karate Project was incredible. It was nice to see the women engaged and empowered and really enjoying themselves while learning valuable tools for their self-defence. I have done Karate since I was three years old and naturally, Karate gives you discipline, self-confidence and self-awareness that sometimes you can’t get from other sports. I personally think that I would not have all of that if not for Karate.”

Instructor Giana Farouk said:

“I am very happy to join this project, as we are trying to show women how to defend themselves and how to get the self-confidence to deal with harassment and situations like this. I am pleased that this project started in Egypt, and I am proud to be a part of it. The most important thing that I learned from being a karateka is to expect your opponent, to control yourself, and to have the self-confidence to deal with difficult situations. Also, we are a big family in Karate, and we get to make a lot of friends.”