Muscat: The “Wanderlust Oman” team is attracting large numbers of women participants to its various programmes inside and outside the Sultanate.
These activities have generally witnessed a large turnout in recent years, significantly from the Sultanate and all GCC countries.
Zainab bint Saif Al Kiyoumi, founder of the “Wanderlust Oman” team said: “The team introduces and enriches the adventure sports among women with the highest levels of security, safety and privacy. It aims at encouraging women to go out to discover new worlds by getting closer to natural life and to practice various kinds of adventure sports. It also allows participants to propose various programs for the team to encourage women to learn about this type of activities, participate in them and experience self-discovery.”
She added: “The team organises various sporting events and activities, taking into account the criteria that ensure the success of these activities, including weather conditions, the required level of fitness, and that the number of female guides is proportional to the number of participants for each event, the equipment needed for the external activities, including various levels of hiking, climbing caves, valleys and desert activities, as well as camping and Karting, which is organised in cooperation with the Oman Automobile Association (OAA)”.
She affirmed that participation outside the Sultanate and organising internal adventures contribute to enriching adventure sports among women within the frameworks that ensure their self-discovery, the power inherent in them and the exercise of sport to enjoy good health.
She added: “The team is currently focusing on creating a set of adventures for diving by providing training courses in free diving and open water diving /scuba diving/ in cooperation with trainers in a number of diving centers specialised in this field in the Sultanate to motivate women to launch undersea adventures and contribute to sustaining the marine environment”.
At the end of her statement to ONA, she touched on the difficulties facing adventure sports of all kinds, which, according to her opinion, are the absence of official authorised bodies for adventure teams to provide training programmes to qualify the guides. She added that there is a need to provide professional training courses that qualify the tour guide to ensure his safety and the safety of his participants, in addition to safety and rescue courses under one specialised platform licensed by the competent authorities in the Sultanate.
On her turn, Israa bint Salem Al Ajmi, Media Officer at the “Wanderlust Oman” team, refered to the activities and events that the team held, which had a great impact on the participants, including a trip to Jabal Shams .She added “The trip to Jabal Shams made us the only team whose all the participants reached to the summit without any injuries, in addition to a trip to the childcare center in the village of Nakhal, a trip to Bar Al Hakaman Reserve with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, a trip to Falaj Al Maysar in the Wilayat of A’Rustaq, and a number of trips to some governmental and private institutions and companies.
Speaking about external participations, she added to ONA “The Wanderlust Oman team organised trips in 2018 to the Philippines, Tanzania, and China. In 2019, the team organised trips to Lebanon, Bali, the Philippines and Mexico. at the beginning of 2020, a trip to India was organised, she added.
She said: “In the current circumstances, in light of the suspension of all activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team is taking advantage to develop skills in the field of adventure, safety and leadership through video call, as the team develops its e-platforms and transmits all its transactions electronically”.
It is noteworthy that the “Wanderlust Oman” team organized during the last period, a virtual program about diving for women, through which it aspires to prepare for the organisation of a professional diving team for women.
The “Wanderlust Oman” team is one of the first female adventure sports teams in the Sultanate. It was established with the aim of preserving the heritage of the ancestors by returning to use the paths they took in their travels between villages and cities and getting closer to nature in a way that guarantees a return to a more sporty and healthy lifestyle.
The team includes Zainab bint Saif Al Kiyoumi, the founder of the team, Israa bint Salem Al Ajmi, the team’s media officer, a medical team that includes Dr. Iman Al Shafie and Salha Al Zayer, and a leading team that includes Rayan Al Kalbani, Razan Al Hamidi and Fathiya Al Rasadi, and Fatima Al Jahwari as coordinator.
Source: https://bit.ly/3awP7iV