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In Delhi’s blistering noonday heat, I watch schoolgirls play netball in an open field. On the sidelines, a bunch of older girls wait for their chance to play another match after them. As they warm up, they tell me they learnt netball in school. “After we passed out of school, we were passionate enough about the game to form our own clubs. Today we play in a netball league of our own,” they tell me.
How did a sport like netball, which is hardly played in India, become so popular among a cross-section of girls from underprivileged homes in Indian metros? The credit goes to Goal, a multi-stakeholder outreach programme at present running in five countries, that uses team sports to teach key life skills to girls between 12 and 19 years of age: self-confidence, communication skills, financial literacy, and most importantly, sexual health and hygiene. Held twice a week in a few government girls’ schools and Sarvodaya Vidyalayas in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, Goal offers two sessions a week that include a mix of netball and life-skills education.
“We wanted to reach out to young girls for they have the potential to be carriers of social change,” says Anjali Gopalan, founder and executive director of Naz Foundation (India) Trust which has implemented Goal in India since 2006. Before Naz became involved with Goal, Gopalan had become frustrated by the fact that in spite of everyone’s best efforts, young women were getting infected with HIV everyday. “We knew we had to somehow reach out to teenage girls and teach them about hygiene and safe sexual practices,” she says. One of the Naz Foundation trustees came up with the idea of introducing schoolgirls to a sport, and thus began Naz’s partnership with Goal.
Netball may seem like an odd choice of sport for this purpose, but it’s been a good one. As a relatively new sport, it has less competition and, therefore, more scope to rise. Also, Netball Australia is Goal’s strategic partner and offers all technical assistance. Most of all, it’s a lot of fun. “The first time I saw the girls playing netball, it was exhilarating,” says Gopalan. “Initially, they didn’t even want to take their dupattas off. As they became immersed in the game, they flung off the dupattas! Now they want track suits...”
Their mindsets have been similarly transformed. “Initially, many girls in our sessions had dropped out of school. A few months of playing, and many enrolled in school again,” says Jaya Tiwari, city coordinator of Goal. In most of the communities Naz reaches out to, girls get married soon after they leave school. “However, many of our players had the guts to convince their families to let them study or get jobs before marriage,” says Tiwari. Goal being a Standard Chartered Community Investment initiative, its focus on financial literacy has also been an empowering one. “Many girls hadn’t been inside a bank, let alone an ATM. But now, they understand the importance of being financially independent and having one’s own bank account,” says Gopalan. Some girls have also become Community Sports Coaches (CSCs) and fulltime Goal trainers. Most significantly, the once taboo subject of sexual health has become something that is now discussed openly and often during the team meetings and training sessions.
“I don’t quite know how, but playing a team sport has changed me. I started playing for fun. Then the fact that my team was always with me filled me with confidence,” says Lakshmi, now a coach with Goal. Her protective family initially objected to her taking up a sport. “But when our team started competing in tournaments and winning them, they came round,” says she. As a coach, Lakshmi talks to players about a variety of issues. “At first the girls feel shy talking about menstruation and safe sex. But seeing how open we all are here about these topics, they loosen up very quickly,” she says. “As the girls play together, they learn that with the support of each other and their team, there’s nothing that they can’t do in life.” Lakshmi was chosen to go to Amsterdam for a conference some time ago, a brave journey for a protected young girl. “It was wonderful! Because of my exposure to sports, today I am not scared of anything,” says the spunky young woman.
As an outreach programme that has touched the lives of over 10,000 girls, Goal has been more effective than Gopalan and her team at Naz had ever envisaged — though, of course, it’s a mere drop in India’s ocean of vulnerable girls. Compared with traditional outreach modes like counselling, posters and pamphlets, Goal’s focus on netball makes its focus group more receptive and eager to learn. Moreover, its scope is broad, and can be used to disseminate different types of information. “We’ve seen how a sport has enabled our girls to transform into confident and informed role models for their communities,” says Gopalan. “It feels good.”
To learn more about this programme, visit www.nazindia.org/goal.htm and goalprogramme.org/ or follow them on Facebook
Next fortnight: the story of Muskaan, an initiative that is putting the smiles back on the faces of adults with mental disabilities by giving them the chance to live and earn with dignity.
Next fortnight: the story of Muskaan, an initiative that is putting the smiles back on the faces of adults with mental disabilities by giving them the chance to live and earn with dignity.
