Afghan women in sports topic of Dec. 6 lecture

10:32 a.m., Nov. 29, 2006--Awista Ayub, founder of the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, will speak at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 6, in 007 Willard Hall Education Building.

Ayub will present a lecture titled “Reintegration of Afghan Girls through Sports,” with the event sponsored by the Department of Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences, the Women's Studies Program and the Center for International Studies.

Ayub founded the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange in fall 2003 to promote athletics and leadership skills among young women in the schools and communities in Afghanistan. In June 2004, AYSE helped create the first international girls soccer team from Kabul by sponsoring eight young girls who traveled from Afghanistan to the United States.

Two years later, Ayub traveled to Afghanistan along with four Afghan-American soccer coaches and effectively organized a girl's soccer clinic in Kabul. The clinic worked through the Afghanistan National Olympic Committee and involved more than 250 Afghan girls, two of whom were honored at the 2006 ESPY Awards, where they received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

Currently, Ayub works at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C., where she serves as education and health officer. She received her bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Rochester in 2002. While in college, she founded the women's ice hockey team at the University of Rochester and also the Northeast Women's Collegiate Hockey Association.