Mai Malkawi - New York

The girl named Asma Kawkab was honored by thousands at the opening of the All-Star baseball tournament in Cleveland on Monday, after winning the best essay in the 10,000 Breakthroughs written by state schoolchildren.

Asma, a fifth-grade student at Shaw Avenue Elementary School in New York's Valley Stream, won the prize, a paid trip to the first league match.





Face bullying

Asma's article was chosen in April as the best essay in which she presented her childhood experience with harassment and bullying because of her hijab and religion.

After announcing her victory, she read the article to all students at her school and to the official of the annual competition that visited the school, Sharon Robinson, daughter of the first African-American baseball player Jackie Robinson.

Asma said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera Net that she wrote the article after her friends were bullied because of their appearance, which she also faced because of her veil, where she explained how she began to be bullied since she was in the second grade of primary.

Asma described her feelings after honoring at the baseball stadium and thousands of people applauded her as "shocked and happy at the same time and I was nervous in front of thousands with my hijab."

She asserted her sense of change in the behavior of students in the classroom and in the school after she won, “After they were describing me with bully words like you are a terrorist, you are from ISIS… ".

Hijab

"The hijab is the headscarf worn by Muslim women outside the home is part of what I do," Asma writes in the article. "Sometimes I feel I have to take off the hijab so that children stop saying bad things to me."

American-born names of Pakistani parents participated in the competition through her school as part of the Breaking Barriers program developed by Major Baseball, Scholastic and Sharon Robinson, which culminates in a national essay contest.

Asma honored in first major baseball match with Sharon Robinson (Al Jazeera)

Win the contest

Sharon Robinson expressed her happiness for winning the competition, where she talked to Al Jazeera Net about the competition and that its goal is to encourage children to write their experiences to overcome the obstacles facing them.

"We are looking for articles about barriers, but we are also looking for articles about the steps they have taken to overcome these obstacles," Robinson said. "We are looking for flexible children who write about what they are going through and encourage others to overcome obstacles in their lives."

Asma's article won because, according to Robinson, "I clearly wrote her experience with bullying and wrote well how she turned this situation around her which we were looking for. We hear about targeting stories because of the difference in religion, form, race, sex and language. She represented children with the same problem. "

Regarding the impact of the article on other children, Robinson added, "It was wonderful that she read her article in front of other students courageously, and made them look at themselves and rethink what they were doing and realize that it was not different from them."

"I liked her kind personality and distinguished spirit, and she has a family that supported her a lot and showed pride in her. This has not only changed her situation but changed the situation of many like her," she said.

Welcome names

"My daughter is a nice, calm and smart girl. I read the article for me before she took part in the competition and I thought she had to do what she thinks and sees right," she said.

As for the impact of the article on others, I explained to Al Jazeera Net, "I think that the article affected everyone who read it in her school, other schools and the mosque of our city. Everyone started to feel confident. Many other children started to accept her and became her friends. After Asma won, it increased their self-confidence. "

As for her participation in the honoring of the opening of the first baseball games with Asma, she said, "Everyone welcomed us in the game very warmly.

In the end, Asma's mother explained, "Some people look at us curiously, but I have taught my daughter that this is our approach and everyone understands that we are Muslims. She must always be positive to prove that we are not what they think about us and they really accept us as we are.