Grassroots sports in India for girls

I knew that I had found a like-minded sports dreamer in my first meeting with the CEO of The Naandi Foundation, Manoj Kumar in Hyderabad, India. Over a wonderful cup of Araku coffee, I asked “What about adding a sport component to your girl’s educational programme?”. Before I could even take my first sip he answered enthusiastically; “Absolutely!” Then the dreaming really began: “We should have country wide sporting events, we should have a girls’ coaching girl’s programme, we should develop a weekly sports curriculum…”

Thus, the beautiful journey began…

It is a pleasure to partner up with the Naandi Foundation, an incredible NGO in India, to create a “Sport for Life” grassroots programme for underprivileged girls in the country. India is a beautiful country with so much potential for the development of girls’ sports programmes. It has both an incredible population of youth and a strong desire to learn, achieve and compete.

However, so often, so many obstacles block this potential and make it incredibly challenging to develop a sustainable programme. But together with the Naandi Foundation, we are looking to remove obstacles and build such an impressive programme. 

We have incredibly high ambitions and our numbers are staggering! We are looking to reach 150,000 girls from 10 states in India aged 6-15 years old and introduce them to Sport for Life. We would like to educate thousands of local female community workers in the language and the world of sport so that they can eventually be the leaders of a sport curriculum. We would like to grow sport talent by identifying athletes and developing a specialised programme for their needs.  

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