England youth netball player co-writes inspirational children’s book

Aisha’s Netball, aimed at three to six-year-olds, tells the story of a determined young Asian girl who is overjoyed when she wins a netball at school.

The titular character helps her father build a netball post and persuades her parents to let her join a netball club, opening up a new world of sporting fun.

The book, which was published last month, was written by mother and daughter Niala and Ziana Butt.

Ziana, 18, was the first person of Pakistani heritage to represent England in netball, playing for England NETS U21s at the World Indoor Netball Championships 2019 in South Africa.

Ziana Butt at the World Indoor Netball Championships. Picture: WINA (Image: Archant)

Now playing for Saracen Mavericks U19s, Ziana does volunteering work to encourage children from south Asian backgrounds to consider taking up sports – something the pair hope Aisha’s story will help do.

“If you look at team sport – hockey, football – there are very few south Asian role models, and even less when you are looking at women,” said Ziana’s mother Niala.

She said that there was a perception that children of a south Asian background were more academically minded and said her daughter had “felt quite alone at times” as a south Asian girl in sport, and that she was “treated differently”.

“I think she always felt that if there were more girls in the sport that were like her, that wouldn’t have been the case,” she said.

“It's about having a voice in numbers – the more children you get into a sport from a particular culture, the more it helps them."

Niala said she hoped the book would “introduce for parents discussions about diversity and inclusion because Aisha is the first Asian girl in her netball club and she says about how proud it makes her feel”.

She said that there had been a very supportive response to the book’s publication on Twitter and added: “People recognise that there is a need for change and people need to talk about this."

Last year, Ziana was a ‘highly commended’ finalist at the 2020 Asian Women of Achievement Awards, recognised for the volunteer work she does, which includes visiting schools to encourage children to take up netball.

“She talks about her journey, she talks about representing England and how that made her feel and she just tries to inspire kids and the book is just a step in that journey,” said Niala.

The pair first came up with the idea to write a book in October 2020, when Ziana turned 18.

Ziana had been saving for a big birthday party, but when the pandemic made that impossible, they decided they wanted to spend the money on something special.

In the end, the project took nearly a year, with the mother-daughter duo facing a steep learning curve; finding the right illustrator, researching publication and self-publication and registering an ISBN.

“It was hard because I work, Ziana was studying for her A-Levels so the only time we had was evenings and weekends,” said Niala.

They had a finished product by August, but were not happy with the self-published product that Amazon produced and decided to find their own printer, which Niala said was a “whole new learning curve”.

“We then had to look at what do we do, how do we make it available worldwide but keep it as a quality product that people will take notice of.”

The book is now available as an Amazon e-book worldwide and in the UK as a printed book.

Niala said they would love to keep following Aisha’s journey with future books, but that “at this point we are focusing on the feedback we’ve got from this book."