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What happens when a herd of young goats go grazing on new pastures and return with renewed vigour, igniting the imagination of a nation?
It sparks debate.
Early this week, news broke of a group of young girls under the age of 14 from the state of Jharkhand having travelled to Spain to play in a couple of international football tournaments.
The team is a product of the efforts of Yuwa, an organization that looks at empowering youth in Jharkhand. The 18-member team was led by Franz Gastler, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the organization. They had undertaken a tour of San Sebastian for the Donosti Cup and Victoria Gasteiz for the Gasteiz Cup.
The Donosti Cup in San Sebastian is Spain’s biggest football tournament at the junior level with over 400 teams participating from across the globe. The two teams which defeated Yuwa – Santa Teresa and Wisconsin International – were incidentally placed 2nd and 3rd, respectively, out of 36 teams in the Under-14 girls’ category. At the Gasteiz Cup, they were placed 3rd out of ten teams from Spain in their category.
What was more poignant about the entire story was the fact that the team was comprised entirely of tribal girls aged between 10 and 14. The footballing aspect aside, this was a brilliant tribute to the sheer force of the human will. And to think that this beautiful moment almost never happened.
Some of these girls were subjected to some serious abuse from local Panchayat officials when they went to collect their birth certificates. Most players of the Ranchi-based club were born at home and not hospitals, thereby not in possession of birth certificates. The players had to submit their birth certificates to the Spanish embassy at New Delhi to obtain their visas in order to play at the Donosti Cup.
The Yuwa team was the first ever Indian girls’ team to play in Spain. They were a huge hit at the event, which was televised nationally in Spain. Yet, back in India, they failed to create even the faintest flutter.
Yuwa – Taking root in Hutup
Hailing from a rural part of India, one may find his/her opportunities at earning a living limited, unless he/she chooses to move to a big city. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. If you happen to belong to a tribal community dwelling in a rural part of India, that disadvantage is significantly quadrupled.
Jharkhand has the sixth largest population of tribal people in India as per the recent census. A vast majority of them struggle for jobs and livelihoods, crippled by the pressures of rampant mining which has led to their lands being gobbled up and their communities compensated for with a pittance.
The tribal belt in Jharkhand is rife with widespread government corruption, caste warfare and Naxalite violence, apart from being known for its extremely high rates of child marriage and human trafficking. Close to 30,000 under-age girls from this area fall victim to illegal human trafficking every year. It is one of the poorest and least literate regions in the whole of India.
Against the backdrop of such an environment comes the story of the Yuwa Supergoats. These girls have used football as a means to a better life, as a means to empowerment. Hutup village is where it all started, back in 2009, when Franz Gastler, an American citizen who was working as an English teacher in a government school nearby, decided to teach football to the girls of the village, thereby providing them a platform to try and rise above the prevalent glass-house like conditions.
Just as in other tribal villages, Hutup too treated its women and girls rather unfairly. While men played or lay idle, the women worked, both at home and outside. Young girls here mortgage their childhood to run errands for the house in order to make ends meet.
Some of the players ride with Gastler on his Royal Enfield to practice and event o neighboring villages to teach other girls.
Football and education
In partnership with Helena Tete, a localite, Gastler went about utilizing football to combat poverty, illiteracy, child marriage and human trafficking. That, according to Gastler, is what Yuwa is all about.
It is said that if you educate a boy, you educate an individual, but if you educate a girl, you educate a community.
“Education of girls is the single highest returning social investment in the world today,” – Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations.
Yuwa went about doing precisely that.
Tete acted as an intermediary in talking to the families of these girls, helping them understand Yuwa’s plans for the girls. That included convincing them of the benefits of their daughters playing football, not just from a sporting point of view, but also in terms of education, opportunities to learn and as a means of livelihood.
He noticed the sense of community prevalent in two things at these villages – festivals and sport, primarily football. With the help of the girls and other volunteers, the group took ownership of the football project. They saved up, little by little, to buy equipment such as footballs, shoes and socks. They also managed to convert a barren land into a working football field to practice on.
Gastler’s coaching team comprises of three young men from the village – Manoj, Anand and Hiralal – all football enthusiasts who believe in three principles:
1. No lectures – talk less and play more
2. Demonstrations – don’t say how to do it, show how to do it
3. Love what you do – if you like football, just step on to the field, not worrying about anything else
One of the best things about Yuwa is that the entire set-up, barring Gastler, is local, right from the coaches to the executive director, with each of them hailing from the villages where the movement is at work.
The movement has had a domino effect as more and more girls were drawn to the movement. From 15 girls in a single hamlet organized by one girl, Yuwa has grown past 200 girls in ten villages practising daily, with more girls coming every couple of weeks with new team lists.
All the girls move around like a close-knit family and the peer pressure keeps them from falling off the grid. Gastler places special emphasis on developing a collective spirit which being part of a football team can bring to these girls’ lives. The girls attend daily educational classes at the club while also receiving tutelage on maintaining good health through adolescent health classes.
At Yuwa, they give these girls the confidence to challenge the social script of gender inequality, and introduce them to opportunities that they may not have dared to think of previously. Its aim is to raise awareness levels in villages and through education of the girls also educate the parents about their daughters’ rights and value.
“For millions of girls, playing football gives them personal confidence and skills, health, a safe social environment and freedom from the confines of social norms,” – FIFA
Road to Spain
In April-May 2012, a group of students from Mondragon University in the Basque region of Spain travelled to India and ended up having a chance meeting with Gastler during a trip to the Dharavi slum in Mumbai.
They were impressed with the Yuwa girls after they had a few training sessions with the team from Jharkhand and lent an invitation for them to come and attend the tournaments in Spain. But funding would be required, and hence the student group went ahead and floated an online petition in an effort to garner the necessary funds.
Meanwhile, the organizers took it upon themselves to take care of the Yuwa team’s expenses when they reached San Sebastian. Help arrived from other quarters as well, unexpectedly. A company called Gamesa Wind Turbines Private Limited decided to sponsor them for the duration of the tour. They even received a full tour of the iconic Santiago Bernabeu football stadium, thanks to the Real Madrid Foundation.
The girls at their training ground near Hutup, Jharkhand.
Effect on the girls
Listening to the girls on how they feel about Yuwa and football brings a radiant smile to one’s face; the girls seem to have understood not only the beneficial aspects of playing football but also the far-reaching societal benefits that it can have.
“By playing football we can stay healthy and through football we get to go far away from here and see lots of new places and learn new languages.”
“Through football we study and learn lots of different things.”
“I want to do something in my life, for my village and my country and move ahead in my own life.”
“Girls who don’t play football get married off early by their parents.”
“Before I joined Yuwa, I had 5-6 friends, now I have 50-60 friends. Girls who don’t join Yuwa are missing opportunities, they have boring life. We have fun.”
Pushpa Toppo (13), is by far the biggest star among them all. She started playing two years ago, with bare feet, a tattered yellow dress and a red bandana. In less than a year she made it into the girls’ national team. At the Asian Football Confederations Cup in Sri Lanka, she scored 6 goals in 5 games for India. She now travels with her coaches by motorcycle twice a week to help coach new players in a village thirty minutes away. She and her fellow community sports leaders will lead Yuwa’s programs in the future.
Partners and ‘SuperFans’
Support from corporate and institutional partners along with that from individuals (who Yuwa refers to as SuperFans) has been one of the key contributors to Yuwa’s success so far. Apart from these, some other prominent world organizations have also come forward to support the movement.
Nike & Architecture for Humanity Gamechangers: In 2011, Yuwa was named as one of only 10 winners worldwide (from over 250 entrants) in the Nike-Architecture for Humanity Gamechangers competition and received a grant of $25,000 from Sports Micro-Venture Fund to build a rural football training centre for women.
Coca-Cola: The cola maker has partnered with Yuwa to create the Yuwa Premier League, Jharkhand’s first league for girls, and one of the very few in India. Together with co-sponsors, Coca-Cola has pledged Rs 5 lakh (about $11,000).
Other movements
So can the story of the girls spawn similar movements? In and around the area, similar developments have taken place. In Koraput, Orissa, another tribal dominated area, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Sunabeda, has established a full-fledged sports training centre recently with the technical support from Sports Authority of India (SAI). At present the academy accommodates about 40 trainees. HAL is also planning two football fields in the vicinity.
The sports academy is being run to identify and nurture tribal and local sports talent in archery and football. The facilities provided include free of cost accommodation, boarding, medical care, sports kits and equipments, study material and gymnasium, HAL sources said.
The academy building, hostel and facilities are totally funded by HAL and trainees are picked up in the age group of 13-15.
Back in 2011, a National Sports Academy (NSA) for boys and girls was set up in Imphal, Manipur replete with hostels, sporting facilities and an indoor hall at Khuman Lampak sports complex. Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s proposed sports academy in Ranchi is also set to see the light of day after clearing many a bureaucratic hurdle.
An achievement that deserves praise, not glamour
Last week, we carried the story of a similar ilk where football helped Afghan teenager Shamila Kohestani to bigger and better things in life. This week, we have a fine example right here at home of how sport can help break barriers and provide empowerment to women even in the most backward of regions.
What these girls have achieved is something truly remarkable. As a nation, in light of such situations, we are quick to jump in, offer our two cents in the form of unabated praise, basking in the glory of hindsight. We elevate them to super-stardom and make an equally quick exit and the event is soon forgotten.
We should not be making celebrities out of these girls, nor making glamorously glorified movies that seldom reflect reality. We can talk about the treatment meted out to them by officials back home and bring about outrage. Outrage is something we’re very good at; but then it wouldn’t serve any real constructive purpose. It does serve to sell copies for many a newspaper who will repeatedly stress on the abuse part instead of dedicating column space to the project at work.
We expend a lot of time, energy and money on over-the-top praise or outrage. Such digressions routed correctly could help us spawn many more Yuwa’s.
Yuwa has given these girls the license to dream.
