Miranda Kamal
Founder / Coach
Executive Director, Team Canada Coach, Team Ontario Travel Coach, International Boxing Association (AIBA) 2 Star Boxing Coach, NCCP Level 5, Chartered Professional Coach (ChPC), Boxing Canada Learning Facilitator, Boxing Ontario Official, Toronto Police Services 14 Division CPLC Civilian Co-Chair.
Her Story
Meet Miranda Kamal, one of Canada’s most highly certified boxing coaches. She completed the Advanced Coaching Diploma with the National Coaching Certification Program in 2018. She is among the few women worldwide who have earned the AIBA (International Boxing Association) 2-Star Boxing certification. Miranda recently assisted the Canadian National Boxing Team in two major competitions: the 2022 AMBC Men’s and Women’s Continental Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and the 2022 Women’s World Boxing Championships in Istanbul, Turkey.
Canada achieved great success, bringing home two gold medals and four bronze medals from the first event, Tamara Thibeault earned a gold medal, and Charlie Cavanagh earned a silver medal in the second event. It’s worth noting that despite more than 400 female athletes participating in the Women’s World Championships in 2022, very few female coaches were involved. Not a single female coach held the position of Head Coach, and only a handful of women served like Miranda as assistant coaches.
Miranda Kamal strives to promote safe and positive sports environments across all levels of competition and is a highly respected figure in the sports community.
Over the last decade, Coach Kamal has significantly contributed to the sport for development and the charitable sector. She is widely recognized for her role as the Head Coach and co-founder of Mentoring Juniors Kids Organization (MJKO) and as a Coaches Canada Responsible Coaching Movement ambassador. Miranda has received numerous accolades, including the Parkdale-High Park Community Leadership Award, Price Waterhouse Cooper Leadership Award, Toronto Foundation Vital People Award, Ontario’s Leading Women, Leading Girls, Building Communities Award, Ontario Coaches Association Excellence Award, and a nomination for a Prime Ministers Volunteer Award. Her allyship with the Muslim community has been recognized through her participation in the national transit campaign by Zabiha Halal’s “Together We Can End Muslim Hate.” She was selected to join the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) Team Canada Tokyo 2020 Brand campaign “Glory from Anywhere” for her remarkable activism in the community, which was born out of her experience of overcoming the trauma of a sexual assault during her high school years.
In 2022, Coach Kamal volunteered with Coaches Canada on two critical community-of-practice education groups: Safe Sport and Anti-Racism. Coaches met with researchers from the University of Ottawa for six months into 2023, working towards a better sports experience for athletes across all sports in Canada.
Miranda is a Boxing Canada Learning Facilitator hired to train new Boxing Coaches in Ontario on the sport-specific training Instruction Beginner (Level 1) and Competition Introduction (Level 2) course under the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP). She and her husband, Ibrahim Kamal, an advanced coaching graduate, have presented at the Coaches Canada Leadership Sportif in Ottawa on how they use sport to create social change at their club, MJKO.
Miranda Kamal has been a member of the Toronto Police Services 14 Division Community Police Liaison Committee since 2014. She was elected in 2021 as Civilian Co-chairman for the group. Her role involves chairing monthly meetings with the Superintendent along with both police and community members to discuss the challenges that families supported by MJKO face, as well as those affecting the broader division. Miranda regularly speaks to new police recruits about building relationships in marginalized communities based on trust and action. In 2017 she was a Keynote speaker for the 14 Division part of the Pearls in Policing conference. In this global think tank, top executives in law enforcement meet yearly to discuss their organizations’ strategic and personal challenges.
Why Boxing?
Kamal, a survivor of sexual assault at the age of 16, found healing through the sport of boxing in her adulthood. She received guidance from Canadian Olympic Silver Medalist Egerton Marcus, and they worked together to prepare her for her first competitive match. As a mortgage broker, Kamal built trust with her clients by sharing monthly newsletters about her boxing goals and personal challenges. Her story intrigued one of her clients, who created a 45-minute documentary about Kamal’s journey into the ring for the first time. Unfortunately, her boxing career was cut short due to a severe non-boxing-related injury to her spinal cord.
Kamal was rushed to Toronto Western Hospital’s emergency room in June 2009 due to cauda equina syndrome. She needed urgent spinal surgery. Miranda promised herself that if she recovered from the surgery and regained the ability to walk, she would quit her job as a mortgage broker and dedicate her life to boxing. She kept her promise and founded the Mentoring Juniors Kids Organization (MJKO) on October 22, 2010.
Their dream was to create Community Champions through sport, specifically non-contact boxing. MJKO uses leadership training to promote positive, healthy lifestyle choices for children and youth. With certified coaches, MJKO builds Community Champions by focusing on the needs of the whole person through two streams: non-contact (recreational), and contact boxing (competitive), which includes physical training (skipping, shadow boxing, defensive moves) and mental skills training (visualization and meditation). Their programs allow students to develop an appreciation for physical fitness, inclusive communities, mindfulness, healthy eating, and volunteerism.
In November 2011, she married Ibrahim Kamal, an eight-time Canadian national boxing champion and now inducted into the Boxing Ontario Hall of Fame. She played a crucial role in helping Ibrahim transition from amateur boxing to a professional contract with one of the biggest promoters in the fight game, Eye of the Tiger Management (EOTTM). Miranda worked closely with Head Coach Mike Moffa and EOTTM’s owner, Camille Estephan, to manage Ibrahim’s career. Unfortunately, her husband had to retire due to an injury after recording nine wins (6 by KO) and two losses. They then turned their focus to helping young people access free boxing, and with the support of many, MJKO has assisted over 15,000 youths aged 6 -18 in Toronto’s priority neighbourhoods over the past decade. Miranda and MJKO have been featured and recognized in Canada’s top outlets and publications, including CBC, CTV, CP24, Global News, Breakfast Television, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Sirius XM, Steal From the Best, Glory Magazine and more.