Fartun Osman, the CEO and head coach of Girls Rock, an all-girls club founded in 2004 that promotes sport for Somali and Muslim girls, will be honoured by the NCAA with the 2022 Legacy Award for her local activism in the Minneapolis area.
The award ceremony is part of the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Final Four festivities.
Osman is one of eight community leaders in the US to be recognized for her contributions to female athletics. She will be awarded a plaque during the semifinal games at the Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis on April 1.
Born in Somalia, Fartun Osman was a rare female basketball player in her native country. She was always active in sports and said that her first love was soccer but pivoted to basketball because of the lack of opportunities for women in the sport.
Osman traveled to other countries as part of the women’s Somali national basketball team as a teenager.
Following the breakout of the civil war in the early 1990s, Fartun emigrated to the US. She quickly discovered similar barriers to entry for Somali and Muslim girls into sports and made it her mission to make sports more equitable for girls who look like her.
She fought hard for the rights of her all-Muslim girl soccer teams to play with their hijabs, and her Girls Rock initiative has coached and mentored over 1,000 girls.
“The 2022 NCAA Legacy honorees are an impressive slate of community leaders and citizens who, through their daily actions, have shown their care and concern for their neighbors,” said Felicia Martin, NCAA senior vice president of inclusion, education and community engagement.
source/content: hiiraan.com (edited)
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AMERICAN / SOMALI