Country
India
Organisation
Naandi Foundation
Themes
- Gender Equality and Gender Equity in and through PEPAS
- Empowerment of Women and Girls in and through PEPAS
- Sport for Development
Summary/Overview
The Naandi Foundation’s sustainable grassroots ‘Sport for Life’ programme affords 130,000 underprivileged girls throughout India the opportunity to learn and grow through sports. The programme is part of an ecosystem of skills-based learning called ‘Nanhi Kali’. Through training in financial literacy, digital proficiency, and life skills such as critical thinking and communication, Project Nanhi Kali is preparing girls for a seamless transition from the classroom to higher education and the workplace. Each year, the girls receive a sports and essentials Dignity Kit, which includes a bag, two t-shirts, a pair of shoes, two pairs of socks, stationary, and an annual supply of sanitary pads and under garments, so she can attend her classes with dignity.
Naandi’s ‘Sports for Life’ programme is structured as a pathway to all-round development – to acquiring basic life skills such as teamwork, leadership, and focus. The ecosystem of sports learning is driven by women and girls, including a women’s leadership team and 1300 women sports allies driving the sports at the ground level.
Problem Statement
Globally there is a gender divide in sports and India is no exception. At every level of the ecosystem in India, from participants to coaches, from media to administrators, from local to global leaders one sees a gender divide. In India, this statistic is even more dire as boys’ participation in sports far outweighs the numbers of girls participating. Less than 20% of 11-18 year-old Indian girls say that they use parks or playgrounds and even as girls recognise that physical activity is healthy, only a fraction will continue to play sports throughout their life.
Nearly one and a half times more men (42%) said they played sports than women (29%). In India, women only constitute 5% representation on sports association governing bodies while the Sports Authority of India lists only 18% women coaches on the seniority list.
In their state schools, these girls do not have sports classes, nor do they have a physical education curriculum. The physical changes their body goes through as they grow from young girls to young women are mysteries to them and can have a traumatic impact. Additionally, many girls in India are confronted by familial and community restrictive cultural expectations of behaviour.
About the Sport for Life Programme
The Naandi ‘Sports for Life’ programme began in 2018 as a multi-sports grassroots programme for 130,000 underprivileged girls throughout India. The girls involved in the sports programme come from diverse marginalised backgrounds in mostly rural districts across six states of India. The diversity of the girls is endless, coming from different regions, religions, terrains, languages, eating different kinds of foods, and celebrating different festivals. They are the first-generation of girls to participate in sport and physical activity programs, and first-generation school-goers in their family.
The reason we introduced sports in this programme was to afford girls, aged 10-16 years, the opportunity to live active and healthy lives; starting them on a sport journey for life. We are looking to tackle this cycle of physical poverty of young girls. We define physical poverty as a lack of ownership and awareness of one’s physical body.
The sports programme is led by over 1300 women who are just as culturally diverse as the girls themselves. The majority of these women live in the same villages as the girls, and from families similar to those of the girls. The power and decision making of this ecosystem of sports is led by a woman’s leadership team that includes over 30 field managers located in 20 locations throughout India.
Our main sports programme includes the following:
- Weekly multi-sports curriculum delivered by Naandi’s tailor made mobile phone application ‘SportStar’. There are 1300 women users on this digital sports community who lead weekly sports for 130,000 girls on the ground
- ‘Toofaan Games’ yearly athletics series which begins at the village level, then district level and culminates with the nationals. We have completed 4 editions of Toofaan Games with 120,000 girls participating
- Development of 3 Football Clubs in 2 states for 800 girls, led by women coaches
- ‘Game Changer’ women coach development programme for 33 full-time All India Football Federation (AIFF) certified women coaches.
Challenges
Ongoing challenges:
- Ensuring our impact measurements stays in line with your mission. With such a large base of sports participants, there are many who try to pull the organisation towards talent identification and high performance; looking for medals and results.
- Maintaining the ’Sports for Life’ purpose as opposed to a focus on competition, sport performance and talent identification.
Successes
Our successes:
- Encouraging women role models from the community. Supporting and encouraging women who show an interest in sports to become sports leaders in their community.
- Putting safety first. Ensuring that the girls are participating in a safe environment. For example, ensuring that every girl arrives home safely following our sporting events.
- Giving priority to knowing every individual girl and understanding her needs. Our women’s sports leaders know the girls, their needs, and their daily lives. They understand the family obligations and cultural expectations of the girls on an ongoing basis.
- Making fun and enjoyment the priority. The focus is not on competition, winning or sport performance, the focus is on engagement, learning new skills (sporting, personal, interpersonal), while also adopting a best practice and evidence-based approach.
Community statements about the ‘Sport for Life’ programme
- “Football is my passion and I always do my training and play my matches. After school and football, I do all the chores and cooking for my family of 7. My mother passed.” Dharmista, 11-year-old football player
- “Now that my daughter is playing sports, she is more disciplined with her studies and she listens more to us, her parents.” Father of a 12-year old Nanhi Kali girl in Prayagraj
- “Parents are reaching out to me and asking if their daughter can join the Nanhi Kali programme just so that their daughter has an opportunity to play sports.” Vishakha, Naandi Community Leader
- “After gaining confidence through coaching, I now give my opinion on family decisions.” Coach Bhavika
- “I don’t want other girls to be told that they are fat and they can’t do it like people told me. I want to tell them they can!” Coach Diksha
Lessons
These are the key lessons we have learned on our journey to reshape sports for girls in India:
- Prioritising intimate understanding of the girl participants and community ahead of sports specialisation, competition and mastery.
- Building community partnership. Mobilising local women community members as ‘sports allies’ to be role models and help ensure the safety of the girls.
- Empowering women as ‘sport allies’ with the freedom of moulding the sports program to fit the needs of their specific environment.
- Creating an ecosystem of sports events that is completely run by our women sports allies, from the event managers, coaches and officials on the field.
Additional Resources
- Naandi Foundation www.naandi.org
- Project Nanhi Kali https://www.nanhikali.org/
- Teen Age Girls (TAG) Report: https://www.naandi.org/images/b8b54cb22d5bfd2fe311214e987755a2.pdf
- Toofaan Games Finals 2021-22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-4QsXkdKRc
Three months of intense sporting action in which 186,000 Nanhi Kalis from 6000 villages across India competed with each other culminated in the Toofaan Games finals held in Hyderabad on 30th and 31st March, 2022. Leading up to this, across all locations, the village-level, district-level and zonal-level games were organised and officiated by our Sports Allies – a force of 6000+ women who implement Project Nanhi Kali and Sports For Life, on the ground. 122 Nanhi Kalis travelled all the way from their villages to Hyderabad for the Toofaan Games Finals – most venturing out of their villages the very first time. After two days of fierce competition where we celebrated the spirit of each Nanhi Kali participant, we got our 2022 champions.
Authors
- Lisa Travella Murawsky, Sports Director
- Rohini Mukherjee, Head, Global Partnerships and Strategy
