Tajamul Islam, a 12-year-old girl from North Kashmir’s Bandipora district developed an interest in kickboxing at the age of six. She was inspired by a boxing match she watched on TV.

After initial reluctance from her parents, she took almost a year to learn kickboxing. She has already won gold medals at the district, state, national and international level kickboxing competitions in the sub-junior category.

Now, she is working hard to reach her next goal of representing India at the Olympics and win a gold medal in the under-18 category. She also runs a sports academy in Bandipora, where she inspires and trains hundreds of young girls to compete in kickboxing.

She says that kickboxing has taken all her fear inside out and given her confidence to fulfil her dreams and will continue to do so in future also.



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