Developing partnerships to build sustainable sport endeavours
Had someone explained to me three years ago, that I would be involved in one of the biggest grassroots sport programmes for underprivileged girls in India today I would never have believed it. Although I had a strong international sport management background, I had never been to India yet, I knew very little about the world of development in India and I had never even tasted my first bowl of dal!
But a meeting at the NGO, The Naandi Foundation, with the CEO Manoj Kumar in November 2018 in Hyderabad, India changed everything. The Naandi Foundation is one of the largest and fastest growing social sector organisations in India working to make poverty history. The word Naandi is Sanskrit meaning “a new beginning.” One of their main projects is “Nanhi Kali” that aims to provide primary education to underprivileged girls in India. But, they had little experience in youth sport development programmes.
What both Mr. Kumar and myself had in common was the wonderful belief in the incredible benefit of sport for youth and the right of these underprivileged girls to be exposed to this. Thus, we began collaborating together to create a sport programme for over 150,000 these Nanhi Kali girls.
As we work on building this pioneering grassroots programme, the following is a reflection on both the huge benefits and certain challenges of a sport and non-sport sector collaboration.
If you would like to hear more about the Nanhi Kali Sports project or would like to share your experience of working with a non-sport sector organisation we would like to hear from you.
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