Organised by the Concern India Foundation (CIF), a non-governmental organisation that provides financial and non-financial support to various grass-root level organisations, the Sports Day saw the participation of children from various slum galli schools and non-formal education centres (drug de-addiction, orphanage shelters, and street programmes) in the tribal areas.
“While we have organised a Sports Day in the past it was on a much smaller scale with just about 100 children. This time, the presence of the Athletic Federation of India gave the event a professional flavour,” says Ameeta Munshi, from CIF.
The children participated in various races and gave it their colloquial touch by keeping names such as laamb oodi for long jump, oonch oodi for high jump and dhawane for running race.
Mandtar Khadtar, a 11-year-old who won the gold medal for long jump answers in chaste Marathi, “I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had never tried laamb oodi before, until my teachers taught it to me and we had practised a little bit before the sports day.”
All the children were provided with running shoes prior to the Sports Day but, since they weren’t used to wearing them they comfortably kept them aside. Says Gulab, a girl from the Tribal Centre, “I was determined to win,” who while running suddenly flung her shoes aside, as it seemed to hamper her speed.
Sudha Murthi, director, Aarambh, which runs an education programme for the children of migrant workers, exclaims, “Our children were so excited about the Sports Day, that they would get up early morning and practise wherever they could find space. But most of them would fall in the category of malnutrition and hence they felt that they could not compete with children from other NGOs.”
Another funny sight was that most kids, especially the boys, were fascinated by the huge air mattresses that were put up for the soft landing of the participants for high jump. “They thought it was a plaything on which they could jump,” smiles Munshi. It was quite a task for the organisers to get them off it.
But towards the end of the Sports Day, the children felt a sense of happiness and sorrow. Happiness, for having an opportunity like this and, sorrow for having to wait for a probable event like this in the future.