The Girls Who Have Never Played Anything
In this male-dominated society where girls are not wanted, we set-up a sports class to build confidence, self-worth, and discover playing.
About You
Contact Information
Title
Ms.
First name
Jenny
Last name
Steeves
Your job title
Senior Project Manager
Name of your organization
Pardada Pardadi Educational Society
Organization type
Non-profit
Annual budget/currency
INR 21,017,700.00 Do not publish.
Location
Project Street Address
Malakpur Road
Project City
Anupshahar
Project Province/State
Bulandshahar District in the state of Uttar Pradesh
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
India
Your idea
Choose your sport: (check all that apply)
Softball
If you chose "other" for Sport, please define in 1-2 words below
More, but can't choose
What approach does your initiative incorporate?
Capacity Building
Year the initiative began (yyyy)
2006
Paste your video code here:
If your project has a website, paste the web address here:
Plot your innovation within the discovery framework:
Barrier
Lack of parity in facilities, equipment and funding
Insight
Let girls lead
This field has not been completed.
Name Your Project
The Girls Who Have Never Played Anything
Describe Your Idea
In this male-dominated society where girls are not wanted, we set-up a sports class to build confidence, self-worth, and discover playing.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
In this male-dominated society where girls are not wanted, we set-up a sports class to build confidence, self-worth, and discover playing.
How many people does your innovation serve or plan to serve? Exactly who will benefit?
All 1,000 students will benefit from the sports program.
We are currently expanding our school at a fast pace, as we started with 45 girls in 2000. We have plans to continue to promote our school model (including the sports program) to other rural areas in India, with the hopes it will spread to all developing nations.
Do you have any existing partnerships? If so, please list and describe.
We don’t have any partnerships for our sports class, but we do have many for funding other areas of our charity:
• Axis Bank Foundation - Supports Sponsor-a-child program.
• Bharti Foundation - Partner for K through 5th Classes.
• Dawat Basmati Rice and MCKS Food for hungry Foundation - Gives us rice for meals.
• Dupont’s Employees Voluntary Contribution Fund – Support for Rags to Pads Project.
• Ford Foundation – Give us money for our pre-primary school and marketing efforts.
• IDiscoverI – Gives money towards our Exposure Trip program.
• Pakhar Foundation – Supports Sponsor-a-child program
• R& PM Edelmen – Supports Sponsor-a-child program and provides help with PR efforts.
• S. M. Sehgal Foundation – Gave money for school buses.
• Xerox India –Provides vocational training support and help with marketing efforts.
• Youth Reach – Provides training, sends us volunteers, and gives money towards our Exposure Trip program.
In which sector do these partners work? (Check all that apply)
Citizen sector (non profits, NGOs) , Private sector .
How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
We need to upgrade our sports class to having a sports program run by woman trained in sports education. Our current sports class has two problems:
1) Needs a female teacher. There aren’t any female teacher sports teachers in India willing to come to our school, located in a very poor and rural area. We have resorted to hiring a male teacher, with just a high school diploma and no formal training, to run the class. But in this conservative society, our students would be much more open to sports if their teacher was female.
2) Needs an experienced sports teacher. We need someone who will enthusiastically encourage girls to try sports in a positive and nurturing way, and serve as a role model to our 1,000 students, which will help us break down gender stereotypes and show these children the joys of being a child.
Our innovation: We will send one of our graduates to a college to complete a sports teacher program. Upon completion, she will run our sports program.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact
Learning sports from a female teacher will teach them self-worth, life skills, new opportunities in life and the joys of being a child.
What does impact/success look like? Please list any tangible measures of the impact of your innovation
Success would measured by seeing more confidence in our students. We would also want to see girl sports programs spread to other schools in rural India. An interest in girl sports would also encourage local colleges to offer sports programs (very few do) and help improve existing sports programs to deal with children who have no experience with playing or with sports.
Local communities will see the increased confidence in their daughters and value them more. Girls will have more confidence to go after what they want to do in life. More girls will see the value of playing sports.
Is there a chance that your project could change policy (within an institution or government)?
Absolutely. We believe that when parents see schools providing good education and giving their children self-confidence and opportunities in life, they will begin to demand this of all schools – raising the standard of education everywhere.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow the initiative or expand your intended impact?
With the program established, we would soon see the results in our students: increased confidence, self-esteem, happiness and a better sense of teamwork. With these results, we would show the community that sports is not just for boys, and have success stories to help us with fundraising to keep up the costs of running the program for many years to come.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
We are already supporting our sports class in our operational school costs. The training of our graduates would be only occasional expenses which we can fundraise for. Also, we would need to occasionally upgrade equipment and maintain the space devoted to sports.
We have many supporters around the world, and if we needed help funding the program, we would request help from the avid sports fan amongst our supporters. We also have many partnerships with private schools in America, which we would contact for additional support if needed.
Financing source
Annual budget
Our sports class costs INR 48,000 per year.
Annual revenue generated
We do not generate revenue for our sports class.
Number of staff (full-time, part-time, volunteers)
One teacher. Occasional volunteers come and help.
What are the main barriers to financing your initiative, and how do you plan to address these barriers?
The main barrier is finding space in our budget for sports. This is because we have so many pressing needs and because we already provide free books, uniforms, transportation, some healthcare and three meals a day. We also play each student 10 rupees a day. We do not accept any money from the government; instead, we rely on donations and the sale of products made through vocational training to support costs.
What are the major challenges with regards to partnerships?
It's hard to get partnerships for sports because we have so many needs, people prefer to fund the cost of more students.
The Story
What stage is your project?
Ongoing project .
What was the motivation or defining moment that led to create this innovation? Tell us the story.
When we first started the school and asked the students to play, they wouldn’t. Because they didn’t know how to play. It’s heartbreaking to think that these children never had a childhood of laughter, creativity, and fun. With a sports program, we hope we can give back the childhood lost to all our students. When our students grow up and start families of their own, we hope their children won’t need to have their childhood given back to them.
Please tell us about the social innovator behind this initiative
Our social innovator is Sam Singh, a former field hockey player and founder of Pardada Pardadi Educational Society. He grew up in Anupshahar and attended school, where he learned to play field hockey – and excelled. Though just an average student, he found that field hockey taught him how to be a team player, how to focus his goals in life and how to persevere no matter the circumstances.
(Optional) To be eligible for an additional prize, please select age range
27 or older
- Login to post new content in this forum.
Comments
From reading the details on your project it seems you have nearly all your bases covered. I agree that it is very important for girls to be taught by a female especially in the sports world to show them that women can be as strong and succeful as any man. However, how do you intend to recruit a female coach as you siad this has been difficult?
Very positive, well thought out scheme. Good Luck!
Katrina Bright
Nike Select, London
Katrina - Thanks for your feedback and well wishes!
We will send one of our graduates to a college to complete a sports teacher program. Upon completion, she will run our sports program. Having a woman from our school will also help the community accept girls doing sports.
Definately! I take it that in the meantime you will keep using a male coach? Have you thought about having both a male and female coach? Just because i think it could possible show a positive working relationship happening between both sexes in the sports industry. This could be a positive way for girls to see that it's possible to support each other in sport reagrdless of gender.
Katrina Bright
Nike Select, London
Yes, we'd keep using the male coach in the meantime because though not ideal, having some sports is better than none.
It's true - in this very male dominate society, you don't often see men and women working as a team. But, since women are so marginalized, we believe we need to first show that women have value in life (and in sports) before we can make the leap to a more nuanced scenario like men and women working as equals in a team. Hopefully down the line...
Jenny:
Great effort and important program?
Have you thought about working to find and recruit some female sports teacher(s) from American college sport programs, upon their graduation from College?
Is there an India/American Exchange program that may be run by a Non Governmental organization there that can help you identify some of the bigger American sports programs which have big girls athletic sports programs that you could try to recruit newteachers from?
This is a great idea. I know from having visited rural India that the lack of resources, both human and fiscal, that they have out there hampers their efforts to do just about any kind of positive change. These kids are lucky to be in school at all, because so many of them are working form day 1 -- it would be WONDERFUL to see them get the opportunity to learn sports and know what it's like to have a childhood.
Jenny,
Women Win has great interest in curriculum and expansion projects around women and sports.
I would like to invite you to join the Women Win group at http://sportforchange.changemakers.net/en-us/group/womenwin. Just click in join this group.
Women Win is the first ever international women’s fund that supports sport and physical activities as instruments for social change and women’s empowerment.
Women Win believes that sport is the way for women and girls to learn leadership skills, develop character, self-esteem and a sense of belonging, while at the same time discover the fun, support and power of being together.
Women Win is excited to be a part of the GameChangers Competition.
Women Win will use the competition to find a fellow between the ages of 15 and 65 years old that positively change the lives of women and girls in their community through sports.
Women Win has fellows and ambassadors who are brilliant, innovative and effective women who contribute significantly to the advancement of societies and address social problems through sports as a strategy. http://www.womenwin.org/fellows.html
We would love to hear opinion on the topics debated here http://sportforchange.changemakers.net/forum/262.
All the best luck!
Hi Liz,
We believe the idea of girls playing sports will be easier for our conservative community to accept if the lessons come from a girl from the area.
But, it certainly is worthwhile to pursue other avenues for sports education, so thank you so much for your suggestions. We'll definitely look into exchange programs.
I think it's a wonderful idea to bring people from abroad (which we do currently to teach English), but eventually we'll need a permanent solution. Living in rural India can be very tough, so most volunteers cannot dedicate a significant amount of time.
As a journalist that focuses on under reported social justice issues, I have visited many projects, programs and NGOs through my work. I had the pleasure of visiting Pardadi Pardadi School in 2006 and to date it remains one of the most impressive, positive, effective and hopeful endeavors I've come to know about. This project sounds like a wonderful opportunity to get some of the bright and inspiring girls I met at the school involved in sports activities that are sure to boost their confidence as well as enrich their lives!
I visited this school in the summer of 2006 and found it to be not only well-run but inspiring. This is a terrific organization that has developed a great model for self sufficiency to address a difficult problem - the lack of educational opportunity for poor, rural girls in India. Adding a meaningful sports program will enhance the experience for the girls and bring them closer to parity in self-esteem and confidence with boys in India. If the purpose of your grants is to demonstrate how sports can be used to address difficult societal problems, this proposal deserves funding.
Post new comment