Young football ‘queen’ Maleeka on a mission to empower youth
Maleeka Amith
Gateway College, Colombo student Maleeka Shaahaani Amith who has been selected for the AFC-Aurora eGoal programme for the South Asian zone is a multi-talented athlete who has dreams of empowering youth of the country by becoming a sports psychologist.
The Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) Dream Asia Foundation, in partnership with Aurora specialised in creating and implementing community service programmes for youth aged 16-17, offered the eGoal programme to the member associations in ASEAN, East, South and Central zones of its region.
The eGoal programme to be held from October 5 to 23 is to educate young players on the social and moral foundations of sports, equip them with the necessary skills to lead social change, and offer them a platform through which they can advocate for ethical and responsible football.
“The programme will teach us different skills in different areas when it comes to playing social, responsible football. It’s not just about playing on the field. It’s what you can do as a player off the field because when you are national player, we have more reach. We have more of a responsibility towards our country. What more we can do for our community and with our leadership skills and social skills in general, we have more reach towards people and more resources,” explained Maleeka.
She has been passionate about sports from a tender age displaying her talent in basketball, athletics and football where she blossomed into a creative midfielder and represented the Sri Lanka Under-16 women’s team.
“When I was in Grade 3 my first sport was basketball. Then they were looking for more girls of young age to join football. When I went for my first practice, they said ‘You are pretty good, why don’t you join and get some experience’. Even when I started there were only five others of my age. We played in bigger age groups. I played striker when I started. Now I play in all three positions,” said Maleeka who is an ISAC (International Schools’ Athletic Championships) record holder in the 800m and 1,500m events.
“I like sports in general. It’s very interesting. It helps me a lot even in my studies. I can’t study without being active because otherwise I feel lethargic and lazy,” said Maleeka who captained her school team in basketball and studies Science subjects for her A/Ls.
A bundle of energy and tenacious on the field despite her slight frame, basketball and athletics has helped her endurance in football and to punch above her age and weight.
“For me when I stop and start, I find it very tiring. My main thing is to keep moving. From basketball and athletics, I get a lot of stamina. I do other fitness exercises like road running. During the lockdown it was very difficult. We had to come up with ways to keep ourselves fit,” said Maleeka who represented Sri Lanka at the SAFF (South Asian Football Federation) Under-16 Championship in Bhutan and AFC U-16 World Cup women’s qualifiers at home in 2018.
President of the College Drama Club which won the distanced All-Island Shakespeare competition, Maleeka is blessed with leadership and communication skills which makes her an ideal candidate to become a Youth Ambassador of the eGoal programme.
“The main thing about sports is I just enjoy it. It helps me focus on everything else. Even in school we have lot of responsibilities. I just got Prefectship, House captaincy and lot of other things. At times when we are stressed, I go for practice. It helps me relax. I can do something that I am good at and can achieve as well,” said Maleeka.
“And in the future, I want to do sports pyschology because when I was in the national team there was a lot that I felt we could benefit from, we didn’t have. The motivation for example because we didn’t win anything. The need to play as a team. It was difficult for us to communicate with each other because of the language and all that. Even when coaches select the main 11 players, there are whole lot of reserves who feel like they are not useful and they also feel down. One of the coaches was actually talking about sports psychology and saying there is not enough people who know what to do in Sri Lanka. I was thinking about it and I realised that I wanted to do this. I want to help my team and help other teams and other people who would I know benefit from this. Even people who find it difficult to balance studies and sport. Through sports psychology there is a lot you can do,” said Maleeka who turned 17 last month.
“Even with this eGoal programme, it gives me more of a pathway to achieve what I want to and with sports I get more experience because I’ve also been through this. First step is to help my school because I owe everything to my school,”said Maleeka expressing her gratitude to her teacher Franciska for guiding her and former national coach Chandrasiri for showing her different football skills.
“When I played for the national team, it was a bit difficult because we were not used to being away from parents for like three months. There were people of different religions, background and everything. We had to learn how to communicate with each other but we made a lot of memories,” said Maleeka which means Queen in the Arabic language. A fan of Barcelona and Argentina legend Lionel Messi, Maleeka is poised to become the Queen of football in Sri Lanka.