This is a overdue post about the last interview
from Slum Soccer from the series of interviews last April. This story is
about a Slum Soccer coach who changed his life completely to improve the lives
of others. This interview was in Marathi so the text below has been
translated.
I asked this coach to tell me his story and how he got
to where he is now with Slum Soccer. Here is his reply.
" I am from an area known as that "suicide
area" here. There is no water there in the summer and the only occupation
is farming and growing cotton. There is no importance placed on
education there. Going to school just involved getting beat and there was no
encouragement. So, eventually most students stopped coming to school. Sports
was something no one knew about there. There was no funding for sports and no
encouragement at a grassroots level at all.
I started playing football in 10th grade/standard. I played with black
shoes like what the police wear here. The professor told us that we could only
play if we got different shoes and shorts. So I cut my pants and got canvas
shoes so I could play. There wasn't much of an opportunity there so we played
for the fun of it. Competition was getting better slowly. In 12th grade/standard, I was selected for the under-19
team and played at the state-level. I wanted these certain kind of shoes. There
was no help from home though and no one even asked what was going on in my
life. So I decided to work and head to college. Working helped me earn enough
for those shoes I wanted eventually.
In 2008, I was selected to play football at the district
level, where I was later selected for the national level. This is also when
Slum Soccer got in touch with me and I was selected by Slum soccer to play in
the national championship. I later went on to the Homeless World Cup in
Australia when I knew that I could be something, especially when I played in
the final. I got a chance to see a new lifestyle in Australia. There were 68
countries at the Homeless World Cup that year. Seemed like there was not
language problem as everyone was close and not segregated at all. Everyone
was open to being there.
After coming home from Australia, I didn't want to just
stay at home. I wanted to change and get educated too. However, with the money
I had, I could not get the education I wanted so I had to come home against my
own wish. Then I received a call from the founder of Slum Soccer and
he told me to help start Slum Soccer in Nagpur. The founder
and CEO of Homeless World Cup came to give me a five-day coaching session.
It was a great opportunity and very eye-opening. After I started
with Slum Soccer, I slowly began to see change and opportunity. Because
cricket is so popular here, I wanted to organize a
cricket competition here, but eventually football picked up here so
we started football with our first team of seventh and eighth graders.
The students here have a lot of family issues so I had
to be here for them. They do not have any support from school either. In 2010,
we started the girls football program. There are many societal issues to
overcome, but I took them to see other matches and traveled with them. I still
travel with them now. They would not have been encouraged without opportunity
so I felt like I had to show them.
The main question for me was how to make the girls play
at the level of boys and the only answer I saw was to have them play
together. So with my own "code of conduct," I developed a co-ed
league here at Slum Soccer. With the help of coaching sessions through our
partner sports associations, we were able to keep the girls playing on the football
field with the boys now.
These players' lives need
change and football might be the only thing that can help. I want to
create the best players and leaders here."
