Youth Taking Action: Empowering At-Risk Youth Through Sport

In Mumbai's slums where challenges are innumerable and many youth dropout of school Youth Venture's Ashok Rathod, 21, is getting kids back into the classroom while teaching them life skills that will stay with them forever. Three years ago Ashok started Oscar Club in one of Mumbai's largest slums, Babasaheb Ambedkar Nagar Colony, where he also grew up. It provides boys a safe place to play and learn about soccer, with the condition that they attend informal educational classes. This opportunity has encouraged young people to give up vices common on the street and move them in the direction of healthier lives with more opportunities. We talked with Ashok about the challenges that youth face in the slums and how he is using sport to give them a new purpose.

Ashok Rathod /Oscar Club

1. What is Oscar Club and when did it start?

Oscar Club was started in October 2006 and uses sports to attract kids, ages 7-17, to participate in our activities. We place conditions on participants to pass all their classes and for those who have dropped out of school to attend basic reading and writing classes. We conduct football sessions, as well as conduct other activities such as dodgeball and other games, twice a week for two and a half hours each. Football is a strong motivational factor for the kids and is a healthy activity that contributes to physically fitness. The sports are also used to impart life skills, for example if you foul during the game you are given a red card, similarly in life if you harm someone there are consequences.

Currently there are 40 kids, 12 of which are school dropouts. Since the school dropouts spend their days at work they go to Oscar study sessions and several of them are interested in joining night school. The study classes are divided in 3 groups; school dropouts, 5th to 8th graders, 9th & 10th graders. All groups attend classes twice a week held in the Oscar office, in which different team members teach math, Hindi, basic English and other educational tools.

2. What does everyday life look like for the kids who participate, how can sport be used to positively influence them?

These kids do a lot during the day. Some go to school while others work, such as in housekeeping, fishing, office and pantry boys. They have to fill water after returning from school, cook food for working parents, pay bills, and fill fuel for the month. Apart from doing chores many kids also roam, hang out with friends and even buy alcohol for their fathers. Before Oscar Club they would gamble, play lottery and cards.

Sport has changed their mindset, they have developed mental capacity. There has also been a change in their behavior, before they would talk back to their parents, throw garbage, spit and swear a lot. They would waste a lot of time but we have taught them to value time and now they spend more time on their studies and playing sports. Before there was a lot of group conflict and fighting, but now that has decreased. It is clear that their interest in sport has moved them away from bad habits and negative behaviors.

3. There seems to be a strong educational component to your work, can you tell us more?

We started working with school dropouts and tried to understand why they would leave their studies. We noticed that the kids were very poor students, they were failing in school, did not understand the value of education, and parents failed to encourage them to study. They were weak students, so inevitably they would fail in their studies, and many times their families would suggest that they were not paying attention to their studies and would put them to work instead. We thought by using the extra time that these kids have, which they wasted with bad habits such as gambling, smoking and drinking, we could improve their studies. The classes we started for dropouts focus on increasing their interest, and to encourage them to enter a night school. We also started classes for kids from 7 - 11 to ensure that their studies are strong at a young age so they don't drop out later.

4. What have been the challenges in maintaining interest in Oscar Club, how do you keep kids coming back?

We use their interest in sport to keep them coming back. We promote opportunities like football tournaments, which gets them to compete and are fun, and guarantees they return and have something to look forward to. We have also had other events such as camps where we take them to parks or the zoo/sanctuary, dance competitions & workshops, as well as a career guidance fair.

5. What are your hopes and dreams for the youth that you work with?

We hope that these kids get well settled; that each kid build a good future for themselves, one where they get respectable jobs like police officers and engineers, and use these valuable lessons to improve their lives, represent our community and give something back in tackling social issues that are prevalent in our society.

6. What made you want to give back to the community? Who or what has been your inspiration?

There are lots of problems in our community that I have observed since my childhood. Our friends have very different lives because they made different decisions. They would work at the docks, earn some money, give half to their family and spend the rest on useless things, never investing in bank saving or their education for themselves or their family. The family would notice this bad behavior and thought by forcing responsibilities on them, such as marriage, they would amend their ways. However, more family responsibilities would mean more of a burden to them.

We wanted to make a change for the younger kids so they would not follow suite. So we used football, which is fun but also fosters self-development, and promote education, which gives people the capability to make better decisions for themselves and others.

7. What are your future plans and how do you see your work continuing to positively influence young people?

I would like to offer girls the same opportunities that boys currently have. More opportunities will motivate the girls and give them a better future, where they can think and make decisions independently. To do this we will also have to increase the number of female team members so that families will feel more comfortable sending their girls to learn. This will also bring about a change in families' thinking about girls who do not give equal opportunity to girls and boys, for example in education, boys are supported till college and girls are supported till the 7th grade and then married off.

We also want to involve parents in the program so they become more aware and participate. Currently, we hold parents meetings where we give them updates about their child but in the future we want them to understand the value of sports and the effect it has on the children. Although, many parents have started to understand the importance of education they do not understand the responsibility that goes into sending a child to school and encouraging them to study and attend classes. We will do this in a variety of ways including bringing in people, such as teachers, child rights activists, etc. who can talk to them about these issues and explain to them the importance of education.

Get to know other young social entrepreneurs by reading their stories and seeing videos of them in action at http://genvcampaigns.org/

If you are a young person between the ages of 12-20 and want to create positive change in your community join the global movement of young changemakers at http://genv.net/