ASA celebrates the role of women in rural communities on IWD 2021

Sport is an effective tool for inclusion and it has been successful in spreading awareness among people on a lot of pressing issues. Anantapur Sports Academy (ASA), a sport for development initiative in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh in India, has been using sport as a tool to spread awareness on gender equality. 

Gender has been one of the major themes of ASA’s work. In 2018, Fundacion La Liga joined forces with ASA and strengthened the efforts to improve girls' participation in football, increasing their participation in the football program by 295%. ASA has been using the occasion of International Women’s Day to create awareness about the importance of gender equality among children and communities. 

On 7 and 8 March 2021, the Anantapur Sports Academy football project celebrated the Asian Football Confederation Women’s Football Day with 400 girls from various community football clubs spread across Anantapur district. Fun games were organized in events conducted in 4 different venues hosted by the community football clubs and ASA Development Centers. 

“These events create a buzz in communities, our IWD celebrations always aim to create awareness on gender equality among the rural communities. Over the years, the communities are being sensitised through sport, as a result of which we have seen a great increase in girls' participation in football,” said Kishore Babu, Manager of the Anantapur Football League. 

More celebrations

At Anantapur Sports Village (ASV), a cricket match was organized at ASV for 24 girls on 8 March. All the women staff at ASA participated in the IWD celebrations, where fun games were organized by the female student-athletes for the staff, focused on helping them to understand each other better and building teamwork and communication. These activities helped the women staff to take a break from their regular duties and celebrate with other women from various departments. The activities aimed at bringing all the women at ASV, the staff and students, together and make them empathetic and understand the importance of equality at the workplace and in their homes. 

“The International Women’s Day activities help us to take a break from our regular work and celebrate the day with other women in the program. It is immense fun to play games, the day is a reminder for women staff at ASV to always strive for equality at homes and workplaces,” said Prathiba Bharati, Catering Supervisor at ASV.  

Furthering the efforts to take the message of equality into the rural communities, sports activities were held in the grassroots centres. Fun games were organised in Dharmavaram for 70 girls and boys. In Gooty Town, a cricket match was conducted for girls, witnessed by parents and teachers. “Parents were happy to see their girls play, we had an opportunity to show everyone that girls can play sport as well as boys,” said R Kumar, Cricket Coach at ASA Gooty Grassroots Center.