KBC youth leaders organise sports activities for communities

Youth leaders from the Kadam Badhate Chalo (KBC) programme conceptualise, plan and deliver sports-based activities to community members, including children and youth, in three locations in the states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The KBC programme’s second phase saw PSD (Pro Sport Development), in partnership with PRIA (Society for Participatory Research in Asia) and MFF (Martha Farrell Foundation), deliver Sports Leadership Workshops to 377 youth (53% girls) across 11 locations in India. This provided youth with the requisite skills, confidence and self-belief to become leaders, by learning how to plan and organise activities, communicate effectively, recognise the important roles played by leaders as well as understand how to utilise sports activities to convey significant messages, especially about gender.

In the third phase of the KBC programme, 20 youth leaders (45% girls) from Sonepat and Panipat in Haryana and Cholapur in Uttar Pradesh, organised sports-based workshops for a total of 242 participants, which included 52% females. These participants comprised of children, youth, school teachers and Panchayati Raj Insitution members from the villages and communities where the youth leaders reside. The youth leaders in each location worked as a team to utilise their training from the Sports Leadership Program to plan, organise and implement sports activities to these participants. Through these sports activities, the youth leaders delivered messages to participants about gender, equality, teamwork, as well as talked about the KBC programme and its values. Another objective was to encourage more youth and children from communities to become a part of the KBC programme. Organising these public events allowed these youth leaders to discuss with other community members about their learning through the KBC programme, as well as provide them with the confidence and competence to take these messages to the wider community.

Sarvesh Kumar, a KBC youth leader from Cholapur explained their rationale behind organising these events, “Some people don’t allow boys and girls to play together, even in school. This is why we wanted to play games with them (school teachers and children), and through these games make them understand that boys and girls can play together, and that sports is a good medium to tackle gender differences.”

Deepa, a girl from Namunda village in Panipat, who participated in the sports activities held, said of her experience, “We never played games like these before; we felt really good playing these games with everyone.”

Savitri Devi, a 40-year old female participant in Cholapur shared her thoughts during the sports activities, “Women and men can also play together, there is no harm in that; also women and men can work together, this teaches them a lot.”

Moving forward, KBC youth leaders in Siliguri and Kalimpong in North Bengal will be organising sports-based events for participants from their communities.