Princess Reema Bint Bandar
Last year, Princess Reema Bint Bandar was appointed to head the Saudi Federation for Community Sports (SFCS), making her the first woman in the Kingdom to take on such an important role. The Princess, who is also the vice president for Development and Planning at the Saudi Arabian General Sports Authority, has been a strong advocate for female participation in sports and has since dedicated her time to developing a more inclusive sports environment for women.
Speaking recently in London at a panel discussion on the rapid transformations taking place in Saudi Arabia, the Princess told the audience at Chatham, an independent policy institute, that she believes sports is key to driving the Kingdom’s economic advancement as it impacts every industry and sector.
“I am building an entire sports ecosystem: From the athletes, to the female ushers, and security guards, we’re going from the micro to the macro to the triple macro. Every sector in the country requires a down chain,” she explained in a recent Arab News article.
Princess Reema was in London as part of the delegation accompanying Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
Since her appointment, she has also worked on legitimizing women’s gyms, which will in turn create thousands of new jobs. According to the news site, the Princess hopes to have 500 women’s gyms licensed by the end of June. She has also focused heavily on encouraging women to go out on the streets and into the public parks to exercise.
“I’ve been telling women they don’t need permission to exercise in public, they don’t need permission to activate their own sports programs. And more and more they are doing it. […] The choices that women have today are greater than yesterday and every day they will grow more.”
According to Majallah.com, while at the London event, the Princess called for people to “get over” their “fixation on the appearance” of Saudi women and shift their focus to “capacity and capability.”
“We look and sound different, but our mental capacity is equal […] I need us to get over the word conservative being linked to a woman that is fully covered because I have found profoundly liberal women who are covered top to bottom and very conservative women that look and dress like myself,” she explained.
She also went on to explain the timing of Saudi Arabia’s increased efforts over the last year with regards to transforming its social and economic spheres.
“As a young nation we had to invest in infrastructure. That is finished. We are focusing on the next capital which is human capital. It is the next step in the evolution of this nation. It is not for anyone but ourselves but I assure you as a global environment, you are the beneficiary of this focus.”
