Sheikh Mohammed Kamal Uddin
Chairman

Sheikh Mohammed Kamal Uddin is the Chairman of Birmingham Tigers. A London Tigers Project based in the West Midlands. He is an Aeronautical Graduate from Kingston University, London. In 2008 he completed his Aeroplanes, Systems and Engines training on Large Commercial Civil Jet Aircrafts, working towards his European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Part 66 B1 License at the Brunel college of Aeronautics, in Bristol and is currently working for Europe’s Largest Freighter Airline based in the West Midlands.

In 2006, Kamal was awarded the Channel S Community Award ‘for his outstanding achievements as a member of the British Bangladeshi Community and tremendous contribution towards Community Development’. He was the first ‘Asian or Asian British Bangladeshi ethnic origin to be awarded a BEng Honours in Aircraft Engineering’.

Kamal has dedicated a lot of his time towards working with young people and helping the community. He was a Volunteer Youth Leader (VYL) and also the Manager of a youth football team, as part of his role in Network Bangla. Kamal has also managed the Birmingham Tigers Senior Football Team in the South Birmingham Football League in 2009-2010 season. During 2010 he was awarded the V100 Certificate for contributing over 100 Hours of Voluntary Community Service. He also a Director of NetworkBangla, a non profit organisation promoting networking and development within the Bengali Community.

In his youth he has always had love and passion for football. The highest level of football that he played, was when he represented his District Team. He is currently the Scout in the Midlands, for the UK Bangladeshi National Football Team which particpate in the Inner City World Cup, a prestigious football tournament held in London. He is always on a look out to spot young talent and helping them develop. Kamal enjoys blogging, reading and flying. He loves playing sports especially football, badminton, tennis and snooker. He enjoys socialising with his family and close friends as well as eating out and travelling.

Abdullah Kenewa
Sport Development Officer
abdullah@birminghamtigers.org

Abdullah Kenewa is a young British Muslim from West Midlands in Birmingham, who is currently working as part of a team to help develop Birmingham Tigers. He graduated in 2011 from the University of Wolverhampton after studying BSc (Hons) Sports Coaching.

Abdullah has given so much of his time purely for the love of sport and also to help set up sports projects within deprived communities. He has been recognised as a Local Hero in Birmingham for helping young people access sport in his local community. Abdullah from Birmingham has been recognised as a Local Hero because of his commitment to helping coach football and other sports to children in many different areas of the city. Within a year, Abdullah had completed 192 hours of volunteering and has helped hundreds of younger kids from his community get active, improve their health, and most of all have fun! Abdullah volunteered at Sport 4 Life – a local Birmingham charity that exists to change lives through the power of sport. This included projects which combine fun sports activities with structured educational courses, supporting young people to transform their attitudes, boost their employability, and improve their health.

Abdullah is one of a number of volunteers supported by Co-operative StreetGames Young Volunteers programme, which trains volunteers, aged between 16 and 25, in community leadership and sports coaching skills and helps them to gain sports qualifications. Michael Fairclough, Head of Community and Campaigns at The Co-operative, said: “I would like to congratulate Abdullah for his dedication to our Co-operative StreetGames Young Volunteers programme. He has worked extremely hard learning coaching, sports and community leadership skills and has devoted a great deal of time to inspiring other young people to get involved in sport, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve in local communities right across the country.”

Abdullah has been coaching multi sports for the past 2 years to enhance and develop his skills. Studying Sports Coaching at a degree level has broadened his knowledge and understanding of what it means to be a high level Sports Coach. This had also given him the opportunity to complete and achieve sport related qualifications e.g. Level 3 Advanced Personal Trainer, 1st4 Sport Level 1 and Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Football and Multi-skills fundamentals. Having a sports orientated family has helped his love and passion for sports grow further, which has encouraged him to pursue a career within the sporting industry.

His ambition is to have disadvantaged communities be given the opportunity to bring along young children/adults to develop their skills further in a particular sport, to improve and develop themselves and their communities. Also to organise activities which brings the community together and to show an individual that they can achieve anything they want with hard work. Abdullah wants to see more people playing and enjoying sport which he loved doing growing up. He wants to see people improving their health, improving their skills, and raising their confidence through sport. He would love to see more communities working together as a unit and improving their quality of life through sport. In his spare time Abdullah enjoys to play computer games and also engage in different sporting activities such as football, swimming and weight lifting.

Abdulrahman Kassim
Project Development Officer
abdulrahman@birminghamtigers.org

Abdulrahman Kassim, is a young British Yemeni based in the West Midlands, Birmingham. He successfully graduated with a BSc (Hons) Sports Coaching Degree, from University of Wolverhampton in 2011. He has gained other numerous qualifications related to his field such as Level 3 Advanced Personal Trainer, 1st4 Sport Level 1 Certificate in Coaching Football, Multi-skills. By completing the BSc (Hons) Sports Coaching degree it enabled him to develop leadership, communication and organisation skills. It had also given him the knowledge needed to become a successful Coach.

He has been coaching sports for the past two years, recently coaching as a volunteer with a community based organisation, which allowed him to excel his skills further, in the coaching industry. Sport has always been a massive part of Abdulrahman’s life. He has always enjoyed engaging in sports activities, this enabled him to take on a greater responsibility in motivating and encouraging others. Furthermore, this has given him the opportunity to develop and enhance his coaching abilities.

Abdulrahman has played sport, ever since he was young child and continues to play till this day. He feels so emphatic in wanting to learn more about the subject and his zeal to learn more in the subject is remarkable. Sport has been a key factor of his life, from learning, to coaching people from all ages. For Abdulrahman the passion for sport and helping others makes the prospect of being a part of Birmingham Tigers very exciting. He believes Sport needs a lot of dedication and hard work to be successful, that’s what makes it exciting.

He is driven to succeed in developing the community through the power of sport. Coaches can have a very positive effect on the physical fitness, attitude and health and safety of children. He hopes with his knowledge and experience he can make a valuable contribution to a system which could improve people’s quality of life, as well as enhance the individual to succeed in the future.

In his spare time, he gains pleasure from socialising with friends and reading books particularly those that are related to his field of study. Abdulrahman also enjoys engaging in different types of sports such as football and athletics as well as participating in several different activities including weight lifting, badminton and swimming. He feels sport is a great way of making friends, socialising and developing yourself.

Abdullatif Kenewa
Events Development Officer
abdullatif@birminghamtigers.org

Sport is a central part of Abdullatif’s life and he has always had a keen interest in how sport can be incorporated into everyday activities. While working as an assistant football coach for a community based project in Birmingham, Abdullatif was able to transfer the tactical knowledge he had gained while studying a BSc in Sports at Worcester University, into a more practical and user-friendly form, igniting his passion for sports coaching and leading him to complete an FA Level 1 certificate in football coaching.

As an assistant PE teacher Abdullatif developed skills through identifying and solving problems to overcome challenges, promote personal survival and social responsibility, key concepts of an effective sports curriculum. Having been inspired by his own teaching experiences at George Dixon School in Birmingham, Abdullatif used self -assessments such as range questionnaires after sessions to allow students to become more actively involved in their learning. By taking advantage of the flexibility offered by the curriculum he was able to make successful and valuable cross-curricular links. Abdullatif developed creative and innovative ideas such as using digital cameras to capture sequences in gymnastics and using knowledge of food to devise healthy meal plans.

One of the most challenging and rewarding projects Abdullatif carried out as part of his university degree was to organise an event at Worcester Rugby Club to raise awareness of sport and the value of a healthy lifestyle. Abdullatif even managed to invite two very special England Rugby stars to this event which was a huge success and was well received within the local community including a very positive review within the local newspaper!

Abdullatif firmly believes that patience, good time management and a flexible attitude, adapting coaching styles to the needs of the individual in a safe environment where they are well informed, have clear objectives, are challenged and encouraged to be their best and enjoy sport whatever their ability, is a key element of effective coaching. This belief has encouraged Abdullatif to work as part of the team developing Birmingham Tigers.

An advantage of being bilingual is that coupled with the cultural understanding that he has of inner urban communities he is more aware of the needs of individuals and the value of cultural diversity. Abdullatif is a keen cyclist and enjoys a wide range of sporting activities from weight lifting to table tennis. In addition he has a passion for photography and he particularly enjoys travelling and sampling different cuisines.

Amina Begum
Tigress Project Leader
amina@birminghamtigers.org

Amina Begum is currently working as an Analyst based in Leicester for a multi national company called Centrica, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is part of the FTSE 100 index.

Amina is helping to develop the Birmingham Tigeress (Womens) Project to raise the awareness in sports for females and promote a healthy life style.

Amina comes from a very sporting background. Having being born into a male dominated family Amina instantly fell in love with football. Her brothers were heavily involved in football and every weekend they would drag her along to their games and training, it then became a part of everyday life. At the little age of five, football was the only thing she knew.

At the age of 16, Basketball was introduced to the school she was attending, Bordesley Green Girls’ School and instantly wanted to get into the new found love she had for the sport. One of the players from Birmingham Bullets spent 6 weeks at the school teaching the Sport. Amina at this point realised that she had quite a talent in Basketball especially as point guard, because of her shooting abilities.
Her teachers pushed her to be involved in all the sporting activities they held at the school such as cricket, netball, basketball and hockey.

Amina went on to college, Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form and continued playing both sports, Football and Basketball. The Sports teacher praised her for her skills in both sports, especially Basketball. He wanted her to be part of the boys Basketball Team as they did not have a girls team and represent the college, which she went on to do. Her greatest achievement was being awarded the Sports Woman of The Year 1998 by the Birmingham Lord Mayoress.

While in full time employment Amina continues to still play both sports. She has a very supporting and loving family who have always pushed her to excel in the talents she has, and still continues to do so. She also spent a bit of time training with the Birmingham Lazers Team.

Coming from a Muslim background, Amina always found sports for Women very scarce. She would always encourage her female friends and family to get involved. She experienced many push backs because of her gender but never gave up. She believes being involved in Sport is not just for people who are talented but for people who have a passion, who want to be involved in the community, who have a talent but are afraid to try and who believe ‘they are just too old’. She wants to change people’s perception to female Sports. This project will allow the community to come together and build relationships which will go on to succeed what the Birmingham Tigers stand for ‘Providing Opportunities and Transforming Lives’.

In 2010, Amina had the opportunity to watch the LA Lakers play at the O2 Areana and met her favourite player Kobe Bryant. In her spare time Amina likes to go gym, play football and basketball, she also likes to socialise with friends and try to spend as much time as she can with her family.