Far away from the privileged few soccer academies across India and the millions of arm chair soccer enthusiasts across our land, the Krida Vikas/Slum Soccer in Nagpur is trying to bring a change of a different kind.
This is a football project that touches some of India’s neediest children. There are no rich kids flaunting the jerseys of European clubs here, far from it. This sports project is designed to provide opportunities and motivation for slum-dwelling and homeless children and youngsters to use football as a means to social improvement.
Harmit : Please tell us about how and when the idea of forming Krida Vikas/Slum Soccer came to you? Organization wise, are Krida Vikas/Slum Soccer the same?
Trending
Abhijeet : Krida Vikas Sanstha (Registered as NGO since 2003) is a sport based organization head quartered at Nagpur. Slumsoccer is one of the projects that we run.
Our founder is Vijay Barse. It all started one rainy monsoon filled day when Vijay took shelter under neem tree. He watched some young men from a slum, play football with a broken bucket. They paid no regard to their lack of shoes, clothes, rain or the lack of a ball. Vijay had always nursed a passion for the underprivileged and he decided to organize a football tournament of different slum dwellers while he was still at college.
With increasing participation, he saw the grades of the children in the slums go up and drug use fall. In 2001, Vijay set up India’s first “jhopadpatti football tournament” which saw 1,500 participants.
In 2002, Vijay registered Krida Sanstha Vikas Nagpur. In the 2002 tournament, a total of 17 districts took part. In 2003, 10 states took part in the tournament.
Every year since then slum level, city level and state level matches are held. Vijay did consider applying for grants from the government but gave up in the face of apathy and corruption.
 |
Harmit : How many children have been touched by your programs over the years? Do you run programs year round, structured programs or is your approach more camp based? Geographically, where in India have most of your programs focused.
Abhijeet : Every year through our tournaments and camps we touch lives of nearly 5000 participants. There are this following elements that constitute Slumsoccer
- Annual slum soccer tournament which is held local level, state level national level and finally finishes with participation in Homeless World Cup.
- We conduct awareness programs during our tournaments on issues such as AIDS, Environment, Education. We take out rallies with our participants and create awareness amongst general public on relevant issues.
- We conduct coaches education program for developing coaches from with the players themselves.
- Players development program is another aspect that we have now started paying more attention to, under this we forms teams which get a chance to play against profession club teams.
- Through our project Youngstars children from rural schools are trained by our coaches and we also help them to participate in regular football tournaments.
Our programs are run from different parts of India, from Uttarakhand to Chennai, from Gujarat to West Bengal. We have nearly 13 states taking part in our events.
Most of activities are concentrated in Central India though.
Harmit : What does a typical Slum Soccer program look like? How many days, what kind of soccer training is involved. What other, non-soccer, things do you try and impart to the children?
Abhijeet : A typical slum soccer program would have a coaching session for nearly 15-20 days and ends with a football festival and a tournament. We create awareness regarding relevant issues such as addictions such as tobacco, alcohol etc, through out our events.
Harmit : Have any major Indian corporations or state Football federations or the AIFF or arms of the India state (state or central) actively assisted your endeavor? How this project is financially supported?
Abhijeet : No
Harmit : Was it hard to convince the parents in the slums to let their children play? Is there a program for adults too, or are the football programs restricted to kids alone?
Abhijeet : When the parents see their children taking part in an organized tournament they feel proud and encourage their kids. According to one of the parents who is a housemaid “I feel that as long as my son is playing football, he is away from all the bad company and bad habits that form a part of the regular slum life”.
Our program are open for all ages.
Harmit : Have any of the children in slum soccer gone on to make a mark at district or state level or even beyond? Have any of the children had organized sport make a positive impact in the non sporting aspect of their lives.
Abhijeet : We have our participant who have taken up jobs, one of our players was selected in police force, most of them become soccer coaches in schools, some of them join us as coaches and peer leaders.
Last year our participant Ms. Disha Lohabare was adjudged best female player at the Homeless World Cup of Milan 2009.
Slowly our teams are now gaining foothold in regular tournaments .
Harmit : Have you been able to involve girls as well given the apathy we seem to have as a society to participation of girls in organized, competitive sports?
Abhijeet : Yes we are working towards improving and increasing womens participation in football, we will be sending an all womens squad to this year’s Homeless World Cup which will be held in Rio, Brazil in September 2010.
We have special sessions for female players during our programs.
Harmit : Where do you see Krida Vikas/Slum Soccer in the next few years? Do you have the ability to scale and the funds for reaching out to a larger audience?
Abhijeet : We see an increase in number of participants, we foresee an increase in number of trained coaches working for us. Another aspect we are working on is improving the quality of game being played. We have the ability to scale our efforts but as with any organization funds are always an issue. We are hopefull though that in coming years people will the impact that we are creating and come forward to help us.
Harmit : Please tell us what kind of experience has travelling to the various Homeless world Cup been for your teams over the years? How did Tottenham HotSpurs end up sponsoring/assisting your team?
Abhijeet : Participating in HWC is a life altering event for all our players, they gain self confidence and a determination to give back to their slums.
Alexander Ross helped us in getting THFC sponsorship.
Harmit : Many thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
