Shabana Azmi celebrates International Women's Day with 500 school kids

Shabana Azmi with the school kids

MukkaMaar, a self-defence training programme for underprivileged women along with India's leading online poker-gaming platform, Spartan Poker, hosted a special event for the students of close to 30 MCGM schools on the occasion of International Women's Day in the presence of veteran actor, Shabana Azmi. With this activity, the aim was to showcase the real strength and courage of school girls, who were taught various fighting and self-defence techniques by the MukkaMaar team, supported by Spartan Poker. Held on March 8, the event was hosted at the P A Mhatre Sports Ground at Juhu in Mumbai and saw over 500 attendees including mothers and school kids.

The children left everyone mesmerised as they demonstrated their skills in Martial Arts and participated in competitions including poetry-recital, debate and Martial Arts demonstrations. Among special performances were hula hoop, story-telling and a short skit on the girl-child. Gracing the event as the Chief Guest was veteran Bollywood actor Shabana Azmi, along with Mr Amin Rozani, Co-founder and MD of Spartan Poker, as well as prominent celebrities, Sharad Kelkar, Mohit Raina, Kritika Kamra, Eisha Chopra, Pretaam Singh, Ishita Moitra (Writer) and ex-National Football Player Abeer Arsiwala, among others, including a special guest, Shri Ameet Satam, BJP MLA of Juhu.

Shabana Azmi records a video of the martial arts demo by the school kids

The judges and guests were left spellbound by the skill and talent displayed by the girls and their mentors. The winners of the evening were the children from Akurli (Hindi-medium) school who won the title of 'Best School Performance' while they also won 1st prize in the poetry, demonstration and debate competitions.

Speaking about the event, Amin Rozani, Co-founder and MD of Spartan Poker said, "I am honoured to be a part of this wonderful cause and so happy that we are able to support it for all its needs. Thanks to the hard work of the MukkaMaar team and the support of MCGM schools, they are now teaching and training over 1700 people, it is commendable that the organisation has grown in such a short duration. The demonstrations and the skills displayed by the kids have left me speechless, I was extremely happy that we are working towards helping these kids build their confidence as well."

Shabana Azmi poses for a photo with the kids and the other guests

Adding to the same, Ishita Sharma, Founder of MukkaMaar said, "It is great to see the girls achieve so much in the amount of time that we have been training them, however the biggest achievement that we see is that their mothers are also here. It is a huge roadblock that we have cleared, now the mothers will tell their friends and encourage them to move forward. I hope that we are able to teach and train all the young girls in the country someday and make them feel confident as well as secure. A lot of the credit for making sure we have all the necessary equipment and support goes to the Spartan Poker team and Amin Rozani as well as Shabana Azmi ma'am for gracing us with her presence and kind words of encouragement. I hope that we continue to work together towards building a confident and secure future for all the girls in the country."

Sharing her thoughts on the activity, veteran actor Shabana Azmi said, "This is a wonderful initiative and I would like to urge all the mothers who have encouraged their children to train with MukkaMaar to share the same enthusiasm and pass on the message to other mothers. It is of utmost importance that mothers spread the word across their social circles. This initiative will empower the young girls and help them lead a confident and secure life."

Also read: Shabana Azmi: Education, financial freedom important for women

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