Levelling the ground: How sports are empowering rural youth in Rajasthan

By Bharat Dogra 

Tara is a young girl from Rama village in Udaipur district of Rajasthan who recently discovered her hidden talents as a football player. While earlier she had never even thought of playing football, it was very encouraging to find many people applauding her performance on the field with the big ball.

This opportunity emerged when Seva Mandir (SM), a leading voluntary organisation, came to her village with a project for encouraging rural sports. While cricket has been getting all the attention in cities lately, this programme promoted football, volleyball and kho-kho, while not ruling out other additions later.

As Preeti Panwar, a coordinator of this programme at SM, says, "We provided essential equipment and, with the help of the local panchayat (elected village council), assisted with land levelling and other related efforts for preparing suitable playing grounds. A village youth known for his sporting skills was groomed to be the coach."

This programme was taken forward in a spirit of gender equality, which yielded particularly heartwarming results for several girls who not only started excelling in football and volleyball on their home ground but also got opportunities to play in bigger tournaments at other schools. Doors of some prestigious local academies appear to be opening up to them.

Apart from Tara, Manju is another girl whose dormant football skills emerged in a very short time to wide applause.

This village has mixed communities of various castes. In the tribal hamlet of the Bhil community, known as Bhilwara, a young man named Ganesh has been supported to start his own academy at the small settlement level, which has yielded encouraging results.

Despite the hopes kindled by an encouraging start, some problems have emerged lately due to the narrow views of certain individuals in the village, which have led to restrictions being placed on the sports-related activities of girls. Everyone hopes that these problems will be resolved soon and that the progress of girls in sports will resume at the same encouraging level as before. Efforts to initiate a dialogue with those concerned have already begun.

Although the overall response across most villages during the implementation of this project has been very enthusiastic, the emergence of problems such as these is not unexpected and in fact provides an opportunity to start conversations within the village community on issues like gender equality, the need for equal opportunities, and how sports can serve as an avenue for wider opportunity — not only for boys but also for girls.

This is particularly important in the context of SM's project, as its focus on encouraging sports in rural areas carries a much wider vision beyond sport alone, encompassing broader development goals for youth and addressing several problems and sources of stress that have been increasingly troubling young people in recent times.

As Preeti Panwar explains, an important part of this programme is to improve several life development skills, particularly those relating to gender sensitisation. Providing health information and social health education relevant to different age groups is also emphasised. Youth from approximately 60 villages in Udaipur and Rajsamand districts, where this project is being implemented, are given a platform for counselling not just on careers but also on sorting out various problems and tensions. A Yuva Mitra, or Friend of Youth, is appointed to take these efforts forward.

Rekha, one such friend, is very popular among the children and youth of Rama village. She says, "We will take steps in cooperation with community members to resolve whatever problems emerge."

The wider concept of SM is to establish youth resource centres that facilitate meetings between young people — girls and boys alike — so that they have more opportunities to interact, resolve problems common to their age group, receive counselling, and gain better access to books and career guidance. They are also encouraged to write about and explore various creative avenues they may wish to pursue in the future.

Akash has emerged through the sports project as a village-level football coach. He says that while promoting sports has of course been his priority, there are other problems affecting youth that need urgent attention. The dropout rate at the class nine and ten level can be quite high. Preeti says that in her experience, sports and related activities can also help reduce the dropout rate. However, a group discussion on this issue revealed that other important factors are involved as well, such as pressure to join the migrant workforce, the increasing demands of higher classes, and — particularly in the case of girls — pressure for early marriage in several instances. There are therefore many-sided problems and pressures facing this age group, and the overall role of initiatives like those of SM can be very helpful. When youth interact regularly in meetings of the Yuva Manch, or youth forum, they can address several problems and tensions at an early stage rather than allowing them to grow to a level where they become more destructive.

With further improvements based on feedback from project-area villages and continued discussion, this project and its related efforts — which are already proving very useful — can improve further.

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The writer is Honorary Convener of the Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071, When the Two Streams Met, and Navjeevan