Moment of Joy- a DAIS students initiative
Background:
Sports is an integral part of every child’s growing up life. From a young age children are encouraged to participate in activities that involve them physically as well as engage them mentally. It is ascertained that this is the essence of building muscle coordination and mental stimulation. Therefore all school encourage participation in age level sporting activities to encourage physical and mental development.
Beginning with gross motors skills to fine motor skills, hand to eye co ordinations, developing reflex action, planning, strategizing with the team, balancing the competitiveness, understanding the spirit of being a true sportsman and many more skills lead to a physically healthy and mentally alert child.
Identified Need:
Sports is a very dynamic filed. It needs regular update and upkeep of techniques, equipment and coaching skills. Most school ensure that their sports department is well equipped and updated. They encourage active participation in competitive games to ensure that the students learn and practice to better themselves at the game. Most schools provide a healthy budget for these activities. But largely it seems to be a ‘Metro Phenomena’. Schools in the interior or Rural parts of the country seem to be grappling with budget constraints and available funds are diverted to the essential part of the academics like classroom needs and sports takes a back seat.
This year during the Olympics it was evident that India has a great talent pool that is untapped. If the right support is provided to this talent pool, the outcome is encouraging.
Essence of MOJ
Taking cognizance of this need, students of Dhirubhai Ambani International School have taken up the task of supporting the sporting needs of the talent pool in rural/ tribal zone of the country.
The Moment of Joy (MOJ) initiative is aimed at generating funds through donation and contribution to provide equipment and training to school children identified in the rural/tribal areas.
Project so far: “A Moment of Joy” is a sports fundraiser event which was initiated by the students of Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai, in 2015. The project has association with SRFI (The Squash Rackets Federation of India with a 3 Star rating all India) and international institutions like SEK Cuidal campo in Madrid for collection of sports equipment through donation drives.
Seed of the Idea: The students of DAIS now aim to take this concept to the villages that they have adopted. The students work in these villages to provide infrastructure and education support. The next move will be to provide sporting equipment and training to the village children.
Modus Operandi: MOJ will operate on 3 levels:
- Collection and Disbursement: Donation Drive and Fund Raising for equipment and infrastructure. (This will be in form of finance and material donation.)
- Training and Competition: Coaching and Training for participation in competitions.
- Promotion: The project will require to be promoted to build awareness as well as recognition so that the sport person benefitting from this project gets further acceptance to play higher level sports.
Collection and Disbursement:
The collection will be in 2 ways:
Fund Collection: The students of DAIS will motivate funds through various planned activities, events and collection drives to generate money to buy required equipment/ sporting gears or help with the infrastructural need of the sports.
This money can also be used to finance the coach/ trainers
Material Collection: A donation drive will be organised in schools, sports clubs and gyms to collect sporting gear that is discarded but still in usable state.
Disbursement:
This will be done in 2 ways:
Through Network of schools:
Identifying schools in the rural areas that require sporting support and fulfilling their needs with the collections organised. The schools can also provide a list of material needs and the collections can be tailored for the specified materials. Eg: If a school wants cricket gears, then the collection drive can ask for this equipment.
The network schools will have to collect the material from the identified collection centre
Through NGOs:
Many village schools are supported by NGOs that cater to their educational needs. Seeking the support of the NGOs to ensure fair disbursement of material will facilitate a wider spread of material.
Training and Competition:
Identifying Students: The schools identified will submit a list of their potential sporting talents. These identified students will interact with the trainers/ coaches and will go through a selection process for further training. Similarly, there will be inter or Intra school competitions to identify the coaching needs of the school.
Coaching and Training: Identified students will be trained at an identified training centre. This can help group training for students across villages. Volunteering coaches will provide the training on a weekly / monthly basis. A standard training manual will be created to ensure uniformity of instructions.
Coaching the Coach: A set of identified teachers/ volunteers from each school will be coached in the required skill. This will ensure and ongoing training process and will help transgress language and culture barriers. Gender sensitivity will be maintained by coaching female trainers.
Promotion: Announcements, Building awareness and promotions will be the foundation of this project. These will be done to ensure involvement of a larger audience not only for contribution but also for talent search.
The promotions will be done through Celebrity endorsements (Celebrities from sporting and non sporting arenas), Social Media, Press publicity etc.
Modalities of the Project Functioning:
Most children in India lose out on participation in sports and sporting activities purely for lack of access. Participation in sporting activities gets restricted due to lack of equipment’s and trainers. It was noted that most schools operating in remote parts of the country are devoid of funds to support sports facilities. School children don’t have basic gears like shoes, jerseys, and a guide or coach to help them develop their skills towards any sports.
Identified Plan of Action:
- Spread awareness of sports at the grassroots level through celebrity and sports star endorsements by eminent personalities like Sachin Tendulkar, Leander Paes and Anant Vishwanathan.
- Involve other school across Mumbai to encourage participation.
- Empower martial arts and the skills of self defense among young children through contributions to Happy Home for the Blind, Kalyan Kendra Mandil, Mangalwadi Utsav Samiti, Seher Foundation and Baaljeevan Academy which conduct Judo training for underprivileged training under sensei Shashikant Shetty.
- Conduct donation drives across sports clubs in Mumbai (CCI, NSCI, Otters Club) for sports equipment.
- As an initiative by the Year 11 students donation drive will be organized to collect sports equipments. The material collected will be given to the children of Kumbharghar and Hassachipatti village schools.
- Younger students from Year 10 will be training children from Vrijeshwari village, in Kabaddi – a traditional Indian sport, with the added aim of reviving its’ glory. There are plans to donate cycles to these children to encourage them to attend schools regularly as they have to travel long to reach school.
- Year 8 and 9 students will be teaching and encouraging the value of sports within children from underprivileged sections eg: Across the road.
Intended outcome?
- Increased sports awareness and accessibility
- Increased availability of sports resources
- Increased involvement in sports and active skill development
- Increased opportunities to participate in several sporting events.
- An All India drive to support sports in Rural India.
- Motivate other schools to participate.