ONE GOAL, MANY GLORIES
With backing from Slum Soccer, the Indian women's team finished 7th at the 2016 Homeless World Cup in Scotland.
Football is more than just a game for these slum children and street dwellers, who are using the sport to win a ticket to a better life.
...
Abhijeet Barse, CEO of Slum Soccer
Slum Soccer started out as an activist movement of sorts, with my father Vijay Barse trying to save playgrounds from land mafias in Nagpur. In June 2002, he was cycling home from work when he saw some children gathered on a small piece of land where water had collected after the rain. They were playing an imaginary football match with buckets. It made him think that these children didn’t really have any other choice, so he gave them a ball to play with.
Sometime later, he got 18 balls and donated them to youngsters who were playing football. He asked them if they wanted to be part of a tournament. They agreed, and that’s how we conducted our first-ever Slum Soccer tournament in Nagpur.
Back then, there was a lot of pressure to get a government job in the railways or at banks through sports quota. My father used to train these youth and get them jobs. Every now and then, families used to come to our home with sweets and tell my father, “We are whatever we are today because of what you did for our son.” I used to feel really proud and felt that I should be helping my father do more with this initiative.
After doing my PhD research in Mumbai, I started working the US. It was going well but I realised that I wanted to do more for people. So I came back to India. I didn’t have a clear-cut idea in mind, but I saw my father bettering the lives of children who were playing football.
I took up a job as a biology professor and helped my father manage Slum Soccer on the side. I slowly realised that there was so much that could be done apart from just playing football. I started created a lot of programmes and became so involved that I had to leave my day job.
Today, I am the CEO of Slum Soccer. I have a core team of five people who are the heads of various departments such as operations, finance and funding, programme execution and evaluation. We have around 40 coaches on the ground. My father is the secretary and continues to be present on the ground for training.
Since registering as a trust in 2002, we have built centres in Nagpur, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and also at places in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, where our coaches conduct training sessions for the children throughout the year.
For enrollment, our young leaders and coaches visit slums across cities where we have centres. They observe the children, make notes about their routine, whether he/she goes to school or works and the amount of free time available.
There are several obstacles. A lot of children have alcoholic fathers at home, who don’t allow them to go out and play football. These kids are always finding ways to go out unnoticed and play. Over the years, we have been able to convince such parents to let their kids join our programme where they can learn football and other life skills with proper training instead of wandering about in the slum.
People don’t take sport seriously. Even an economically backward family would want their child to study rather than play football. This mindset goes against what we’re trying to achieve. More than making sports stars, we want these children to be balanced individuals, both physically and mentally.
To get them better acquainted, we hold parent meetings and workshops where we explain the importance of mental and physical education. This encourages parents to rethink sending their children to work and send them to us instead.
We started with city-level tournaments in Nagpur and nearby cities. We then had state-level tournaments, which had teams from across Maharashtra. We then scaled up to a national championship with teams from different states. The first such tournament had 12 teams. This year, our tournament held at Andheri Sports Club in Mumbai had 36 teams. We’ve come a long way from starting as a small club in Nagpur.
After every championship, we shortlist 16 players – eight boys and eight girls – and they go ahead and represent India at the Homeless World Cup. Last year, our boys finished 24th, while the year before, our girls finished 12th.
With funding from Sony Pictures Network, Reliance and Mercedes Benz we have been able to adopt 75 schools in Nagpur, Chennai and Mumbai.
There is also an initiative called EduKick which has programmes including mathematics, life skills, child rights, sanitation and hygiene, all through the medium of football.
We started Slum Soccer as a project for both boys and girls and we currently have a ratio of 70:30 in favour of boys. Our goal is to make it 50:50. We also have an all-girls programme called Shakti Girls where sponsors help with funding. We have girls who have suffered abuse at home and now they are leading other girls in learning.
Our initiatives are mainly for slum children, but we open our doors to all children who are facing financial trouble or are being abused at their homes.
For children who grow up and play exceptionally well, we provide them an opportunity to become a coach at Slum Soccer too. We don’t pay these coaches, but we sponsor their education completely. We train them to become employable.
A lot of boys and girls have gone from being players to staff members. Two of them have reached the position of junior management.
There was a boy from a suicide-prone village who ran away from home at the age of 19. He made it in the national championship team in 2008 and today, he is the head coach at Slum Soccer.
Most of the leaders who work with us have had a tough upbringing. But they choose not to dwell on that, manage to overcome the obstacles and help contribute to society. I am so happy to be surrounded by these wonderful people.
AS TOLD TO MEHA DEDHIA
