Football levels the field for people with disabilities

Nipun, a young eight-year-old child with special needs has always loved to play ball and run on the field just like any other kid of that age, but did not have many friends to play with. But it was all about to change; a city based sports initiative, UMOYA Sports aims to change this status quo.

UMOYA Sports brings the ‘joy of sports’ to the lives of people with disabilities and provides holistic development.

As our first programme, we have curated a progressive, year-long sports programme specially catered for individuals with intellectual disabilities and special needs. UMOYA Sports aims to build an ‘inclusive sports culture’ by enabling individuals with and without disabilities to participate in sports programmes together. 

We provide holistic development by improving: 

• Physical skills such as gross motor skills, fine motor skills, coordination and body management
• Social skills and life skills such as teamwork, patience and discipline
• Health benefits by being physically active
• Sports skills

UMOYA Sports also creates pathways of opportunities and exposure for people with disabilities to participate in various internal and external sports events and tournaments. As part of that, UMOYA Sports recently joined hands with Mission XI Million (MXIM) to host the first ever ‘Inclusive’ Mission XI Million (MXIM) football festival. India is hosting FIFA U17 World Cup in October; as part of that MXIM is a legacy school contact programme with the aim to reach out to 11 million school kids with football.

The festival, hosted by UMOYA Sports, saw a participation of close to 100 young children with disabilities alongside other kids for the first time, as they smiled, cheered and joined hands for enthralling freestyle football acts and cultural performances. The festival was also well appreciated by Joy Bhattacharjya, FIFA U-17 2017 World Cup project director, and Javier Ceppi, tournament director at LOC FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017, who were the chief guests at the event. 

“Sport is an emotion, and we could see that on the field today as all the kids played alongside each other and celebrated the joy alike, bringing everyone together. At UMOYA Sports, we use sports as a tool to provide holistic development to people with disabilities and promote healthy living. The festival is a huge step in building ‘inclusive sports culture’ and creating equal opportunities for all. I believe sport is great tool to break barriers and it was evident today as new friendships were forged,” says Aditya KV, founder and CEO at UMOYA Sports.

[This article has been edited by the Operating Team.]