By Rusen Kumar

The Trusts have adopted a unique strategy that resonates with local populations and is based on sustainable solutions. Instead of importing a new sport.

Tata Trusts, through its sports initiatives, seeks to harness talent at India’s grassroots, by actively working in some underserved parts of the country. Neelam Babardesai, Head of Sports – Tata Trusts in converation with Rusen Kumar, India CSR said, “Our goal with all our programs is to have the maximum impact.” Holistic development of children is a common focus in all our programs and with the help of our partners we continue to plan ahead towards making our programs stronger and more sustainable.

What started this mission and what initiatives do the Trusts cover under its sports programme?

India has produced some of the world’s best sports persons in activities as diverse as cricket, boxing, badminton, archery, wrestling and more; however, several of the country’s sports heroes have come from humble backgrounds like the wrestling akharas of Haryana or the ill-equipped gyms of Tripura — these examples underline the effect of sports as a powerful tool for socio-economic progress. Furthermore, we have seen how India’s education policies over the years have placed an emphasis on academics as the marker of intellectual development and economic progress, while relegating sports, arts and culture to a lower priority in school and college curricula.

Further still, physical training in schools mainly involves marching drills or physical training exercises, often once a week with limited opportunities for children to explore the excitement of an individual or team sport. Skilled resources such as certified coaches and sports programme managers, sports scientists- such as physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists, and data analysts are also scarce, affecting the number and quality of sportspersons that the country produces.

Tata Trusts, through its sports initiatives, seeks to harness talent at India’s grassroots, by actively working in some underserved parts of the country.

Some of our key projects include:

• Mizoram Badminton Initiative: Given the existing pool of sporting talent in the Northeast- especially in badminton, Tata Trusts and Pullela Gopichand began a Technical partnership with the state authorities. The aim being to set up a 3-tiered badminton development program that can provide structured coaching to children from the grassroots, to pursue sports as a lifestyle activity, as well as provide opportunities for competitive training. This is the only state-wide grass-roots development program in the county.
• Hockey Initiative: To provide opportunities for tribal children to develop into professional hockey players, the Trusts launched a grassroots program in Jharkhand with Collectives for Integrated Livelihoods in India (CiNi) as its implementation partner. The objective was to professionalise grassroots level hockey in India and provide a launch pad for local talent by bringing global practices to the training of India’s domestic hockey coaches. The Naval Tata Hockey Academy (NTHA) in Jamshedpur, was conceptualised in partnership with Tata Steel. In April 2016, Tata Trusts partnered with Olympian Hockey player, Floris Jan Bovelander to provide international level training, along with life skills coaching at the academy. Regional Development Centres were started to provide competitive training to select talent from the grassroots and provide a smoother transition to the academy from local communities. After the success of the program in Jharkhand, a similar three-tiered program was initiated in Odisha in April 2019, in partnership with Tata Steel and the Odisha government.

Is Tata Trusts working with any government organisation or local partner in this regard?

Tata Trusts’ sports interventions are guided by an ecosystem-driven approach, fostering partnerships with local bodies, working to create an environment of opportunity and excellence for the pursuit of sport and also as a viable avenue for professional careers.

In the region of implementation, we partner with local bodies – sports associations, communities, government bodies and help develop their technical and organisational capacities so that post our intervention, they are better equipped to continue the program without external support. For example, in the Mizoram Badminton program –the Trusts have partnered with communities to use existing community badminton courts to run our grassroots programs, partnered with the State Badminton Association – to leverage technical know-how, organisational support to run state-wide programs, and government support for funding and infrastructure.

What has been the impact of the initiatives so far, and how many beneficiaries across India?

Our goal with all our programs is to have the maximum impact. Over the years, promoting sports and making it accessible to children from rural and tribal regions of India, has helped us provide them with opportunities to make a career in sports. Starting in the north-eastern states of Meghalaya and Mizoram, the Trusts’ sports engagement has spread to Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi NCR, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, and Karnataka.

The Trusts’ sports programs cover 167 schools, 5638 trained coaches and 32,148 children across 23 districts and 10 states/ UTs.

Why would you say that sports is a prominent marker of intellectual development and economic progress?

Sports has always been an important catalyst for development – it raises aspirations and improves physical and mental health, while strengthening the overall development of children. In fact, the UN lists sports as a development tool with a host of beneficial effects, from raising the standards of health around the world, to attracting funding and investment in infrastructure, to spawning new livelihood opportunities in the sports ecosystem.

When it comes to leveraging sports as a tool for socio-economic development, the Trusts have adopted a unique strategy that resonates with local populations and is based on sustainable solutions. Instead of importing a new sport, the focus is on strengthening the traditional sport played in that region – badminton in Mizoram and hockey in Jharkhand.

While building sports programs, the focus is not only on developing talent, but also on investing in human resources- skilling and building capacities. Sustainable momentum is built into the process by developing community resources. The intent is to nurture a creative ecosystem that will aid in the holistic development of children and youth from marginalised communities. With this need in mind, the Trusts have invested in setting up world class facilities that nurture talent by providing support services such as sports managers, physiotherapists, nutritionists, and more.

How is Tata Trusts encouraging more girls to take up sports?

Various initiatives by the Tata Trusts have helped empower rural women across the country.

To help address some challenges, the Hockey program in Jharkhand and Odisha, has added the Trusts’ menstrual hygiene management program to the existing sports structure. Workshops for increasing awareness on menstrual hygiene and new age sports techniques to help minimise menstrual discomfort especially while playing, have been organised for athletes and coaches in the program.  

Along with training students and the youth, are there any training programmes for coaches?

Our approach to developing lives through sport is in essence, top-down. Starting with our wonderful coaches. They are role models, parental figures, friends, mentors, counsellors, besides being coaches. Their efforts flow down to the children and the positive impact it has on the lives of the children, inevitably, has a positive impact on the community involved.

We have a ‘Train the Trainer’ program for coaches. This program is an important aspect of all our sports initiatives. We select local players and recruit them and train them as trainers for our grassroots programs. We conduct regular workshops for them through strong technical partners and encourage and help them to enrol in certified licensed courses conducted by the National and International sporting federations – to improve their abilities. Following which, they have the opportunity to train more competitive children in the non-residential as well as the residential competitive training programs that are available, thus providing a pathway for them to progress in life.

We also involve teachers. As a part of the physical literacy and sports program in Uttarakhand we aimed to train school teachers to teach academic concepts through experiential physical activities, which requires zero equipment and can also be conducted in classrooms. Though sceptical at first about the ‘extra load’ for teachers, we were pleasantly surprised to find the enthusiastic response we got from the majority of them – across age groups – 20s to 50s. It was a delight to watch them participate in the physical activities conducted during the workshop. These teachers, after 6 months of training continue to conduct these activities in school, acknowledging that the children love them and they get maximum attendance on the days when these activities are conducted.

Are the students trained to participate in state-level and national-level tournaments?

All our students are given a level playing field to start on. Based on their talent and inclination towards a sport, we encourage training them for competitive level matches. As they train, they are selected for specialised coaching with National and State level sports academies to further hone their skills and work toward qualifying to state and national level teams for tournaments.

• In Mizoram, 30 talented children have been selected to be trained at a competitive level in Badminton. The best of them will get opportunities to get scholarships and training in the best academies, mentored by Pullela Gopichand Academy. 6 players from the program were in the top 10 Sub Junior BAI ranking last year.
• In Hockey, the Sub Junior Girls team from Odisha Naval Tata hockey High-Performance Center were runner-ups and the Jr. Girls came in the 3rd position in the National Academy tournament organised by Hockey India in Feb 2021.

Lastly, how does Tata Trusts’ plan to scale up its sports initiatives in the future?

Our goal is holistic development of children and building resource capabilities. Our ‘Sports Development Pyramid’, aims to lay a strong foundation of fun physical education and sports through its “in-school” and grassroots programs, subsequently building on these fundamental blocks to provide identified talented players and coaches, competitive training opportunities leading to excellence programs. The foundation layer represents reaching out to a maximum number of children to not just enable them to have fun and play the sport so that they can adopt healthy lifestyles throughout their lives, but also imbibe in them the different life skills like discipline, teamwork, confidence etc, which will help them become better, responsible citizens of the country. Holistic development of children is a common focus in all our programs and with the help of our partners we continue to plan ahead towards making our programs stronger and more sustainable.