Sports a means to social skill learning for street kids
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>View discussions about this entry Country: India
Organization: Bosco,Bangalore
Sport: Cricket
Year the initative began (yyyy) 1980
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? Sports for our street kids while it entertains, exercise makes them socially adaptive and teaches them life skills.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? The uniqueness of our innovation is that we make sports available to these street kids who have had no other chance to play or have fun. It is mostly the fortunate children who have time and resources to enjoy these in a country like India. We make sure that these unfortunates too have access to activities which are a right of every child. We go a step further to take this activity beyond play and entertainment to teach them life skills as well as social skills and make these children face life with success and failures. The street kids are not ready to listen to talks and sermons. But great lesson of life is imparted to them through the element of fun, play and entertainment and, we have experienced, are much more lasting than any other medium.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? Our children come from dysfunctional families where they did not experience what it means to play or relax. Most of them is their first time into sports at our centers. All their life was work and sweat. We introduce them to sports and give them a chance to relax, spend their energies; which otherwise would have gone into anti-social activities in the streets. While they enjoy sports they are introduced to learn to take a loss, to work as a team, to communicate, to integrate into the mainstream,
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? We introduce the kids to sports, and play and dance as a means to entertain them and to occupy their time with useful activities. They may not do it all the way you expect, but over a period they begin to enjoy sports with its rules and regulations. They learn to value the different values of sports like exercise, entertainment, discipline, team spirit and social skills. After games, sessions are held to impart on them the values we could assimilate for life. For example: Anger and disappointment follows a defeat; we use the occasion to tell them that life has its disappointments and one must learn to accept them and carry on. A glorious victory is a moment to rejoice but also a moment to commemorate the defeated that to their fair and well play. A lesson for the victorious is to be humble and not look down on the weak or make use of the moment of victory to subdue- a social evil they all presence growing up, the women of the family beaten by the strong male in the family.
How do you plan to grow your innovation? The sports activities are used to teach life lessons to our children. The ones who do well in sports are enrolled in academies where professional coaching is provided. They get the best in the sports they excel in and this leads them to sports as a carrier for life or as a means to get employment. This is happening in four disciplines namely cricket, swimming, table tennis and hockey where they attend the best coaching available in the city of Bangalore.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. The street children will learn to face life squarely. He may even get employed because of his sporting talent.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? The beneficiaries of our innovation are the street children. He/she who has not had even a single experience of fun and entertainment goes through a total change; he/she is introduced to sports in our centers. Some have never played a game in their life. When they see a ball they want to possess it all for themselves and do not want to share it with anyone else; they fight over the possession of the ball or play equipment. Then the rules are explained and they are asked to play as a team with one ball. It takes time and once they see that one ball can be used to play between 22 or less number of children then it is fun to pass it to another in an effort to win a goal or reach a point. It takes a little longer to make them understand that there are some rules to obey as they play. Life lessons on discipline, team spirit, as well as accept defeat and success are already part of the child’s life.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? BOSCO’s preventive system is based on a timely and busy schedule but always flexible. Children who are active find little time to fight and are pushed into interacting with others. Through games, sports and activities we encourage the children’s talents and skills in a daily and constant basis.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? Lack of finance to meet to get equipments and accessories, to adapt spaces for sports fields necessary for their growth development where they can be children. Also a lack of interest of some children who may not like sports as such; they may not see the inherent values in sports and their application to their life situation.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? Our sports activities as well as all our finances are donations in cash and kind.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization. This field has not been completed
What is the potential demand for your innovation? Hopefully we can manage to include a sports programme into other NGO’s who work with street children as an example of generating life skills. In Bangalore there are many organizations working for the street children, our main approach is to rescue them from the streets; and though many stay with us for future studies and training we cannot serve them all. In association with the government and others we are enabled to find a place for those in need where they are provided these opportunities.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? The already established donors may withdraw. We had a sponsor for cricket and swimming for three initial years and then they withdrew their financial support. But we have been able to get support from other sponsors to carry on the activities. We are accountable on donors and sponsors we trust they will continue their support. We have instilled other projects and hope to keep being innovators and supporters of the street children.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. We at BOSCO pioneered the work for street children 27 years ago in the city of Bangalore. I was a member of the team that pioneered BOSCO: the street children’s project in Bangalore, where I still work.
The first years were the time when we searched how to best serve these children. It took us 6 to 7 years to finalize a working model to serve the street children; though mostly based on Salesian guidelines, on a trial and error basis. Once we had this model we went about establishing means to rehabilitate the children through home placement, formal education and later technical skills and establishing centers for these specific interventions; this took us another 15 years. While this was happening we experimented with sports and fun activities like regular sports, dance and out door activities like camping, trekking etc. For the last 5 years we have put 50 children through 4 selected sports in specialized sports academies to train them professionally;15 of them have strived and others dropped out. While we do this, regular sports activities carry on in all our centers and all the 300 children benefit from these on a daily basis. This year we have invested more finance and man power to establish sports facilities in our centers. Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. I am a member of the world wide organization working for youth, especially the marginalized youth called DON BOSCO.Educational Qualifications: M.A. in English/Graduate degree in Education/Graduate in Theology Language skills: Speak/write/read- Malayalam, English and Tamil/ Speak- Kannada Worked: As Administrator of Educational institutions for 8 years/ Director of educational institute for 3 years/Manager of schools and business house for 6 years/technical education and social work for 9 yrs
Contact Information:
Cyriac Adayadiel
Director Bosco,Bangalore (welfare of street children) Discussions about this entry |
Hello,
I have a similar idea and entry. I would love to talk to you more and share our ideas and thoughts. Please email me at maneezah@usc.edu if you are interested. Thank you and good luck!
If I understand institutions and temperaments in India and Pakistan correctly, Cyriac, cricket, as a holdover from British colonialism, is one of the few customs that is common to both countries. I know that
BOSCO currently has plenty on its plate in India alone, but your program impressed me as one which could eventually be transferred to Pakistan and thus serve a unifying purpose between two countries which have so little else in common and so much which pits them against one another.
Further, I suspect that the need for your project would be just as great in Pakistan as it is in your home nation, so I hope that the international climate will at some point in the future permit a dialogue between yourself and individuals similarly inclined in Pakistan.
Steve
Thanks for the project description. I was wondering if you could tell us about how you involve girls in the project and how many are part of it. Please tell us about your experiences with outreach to girls in this already disadvantaged group because we all know how difficult it can be and I would love to hear your ideas.
All the best from Berlin!
Heather Cameron
Project Leader Boxgirls International
-Free University Berlin