IFor the teenage girls of Delhi’s Sangam Vihar who play football, there is a new hurdle on the very day-from paucity of money to pressure from parents and even clothes. Saloni was recently taunted by neighbors for wearing shorts to her football practice.
“When I left home in the evening, an aunt asked me, ‘You’re all grown up, why are you still wearing shorts? Saloni says. The 18-year-old didn’t care and left.
Neha, Pooja, Nisha and Shama are getting ready for their ‘recovery session’ at Ruchi Yadav’s house at 4 pm in the hilly area of Sangam Vihar. An important match is coming up for the girls. Phones are ringing continuously. The ice chips have to be bought from the shops and the new jersey just arrived from the tailor. A pep talk is also scheduled before the practice match at 7 pm.
Recovery is a post-match session for low-intensity exercise.
The girls of Sangam Vihar are no ordinary school children, they are trained football players. Some of them have been playing for five years and some three. But for the longest time, he was short of funds. Then many families of the area came together to help the girls. He may come from an economically weaker section, but that doesn’t stop his footballing dreams.
While the girls get ready for their session, the women sit at their doorstep and sew the dupatta. Men are mostly daily wage labourers.
Ruksana, a longtime resident of Sangam Vihar, sometimes cooks evening meals for the girls. Ruksana’s 16-year-old sister and 14-year-old daughter Shama are part of the football circle. Kusum’s lawn becomes his classroom for football strategies and Ruchi’s terrace doubles as a place for his recovery session. The vacant second floor room of Kalpana Devi is used for storing equipment.
There is no designated building or place in Sangam Vihar for girls to call their football institute. “It is a building without a school,” says Anirban Ghosh, his coach and co-founder of the Foundation in Khel Khel.
In 2017, the NGO decided to introduce football as a community sport for the children of Sangam Vihar. It worked. As tournaments and participation grew, Anirban realized the sport’s potential as a support system for children from marginalized areas of Delhi.
“We reduced the number of students from 8,000 to 500 so that we can work closely with the community. And shifted the model from school-based to community-based to increase interaction time,” says Ghosh. It is now a nine-year program. Children up to 7-8 years old sign up for it.
In Ghosh’s Khel Khel, the Foundation worked on two projects – Football in Sangam Vihar and Kho Kho in Aya Nagar. But the Aya Nagar program had to be stopped due to the Kovid epidemic. “The students dropped out and we were facing difficulties in managing our resources,” says Ghosh.
There are currently 40 children who are part of the football initiative, of whom 70 percent are girls. Neither parental pressure nor school homework can stop these girls from going to football practice.
“My day starts at 5:30 a.m. when I wake up for school. After school, I eat lunch and run for practice. I do my homework late at night,” says 16-year-old Julie Kumar I finish and go to sleep.
The routine is hectic, but the girls insist they don’t get tired. Kusum says, “We want to play football.
This initiative has opened a window for many girls in the team. Nisha Khan’s football talent and achievements have ensured that she gets easy admission in schools. At present there are seven national level football players under the age of 17 from Sangam Vihar and around 14-15 players in the state camps.