Excerpt from CG+, reported by Vibha Singh on On Saturday, April 24, 2010: Read Full Article
A programme initiated at Ambedkar Maidan in Shivaji Nagar is training young boys to become cricketers. Along with this a message is being given to them by the coaches to stop violence and harassment of women and girls.
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| Some 228 boys aged between 10 and 18 years will be coached by specially trained coaches |
The unique 18-month project called Parivartan has been initiated by International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) in collaboration with the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF), Mumbai School Sports Association (MSSA) and Apnalaya and with financial support from the NIKE Foundation launched ‘Parivartan’.
The project is an adaptation of a campaign, Coaching Boys into Men, which was started in the US in 2001. The cricket coaches are going to pass on the message to over 1,000 budding and aspiring cricketers through training programmes.
The 25 young men selected from local teams to become coaches — 11 teach cricket, the others teach kabaddi and kho-kho — and change-makers. They are training 228 boys aged between 10 and 18 years. “Children don’t like listening to long lectures. But if the coach, who they look up to, says something, they are more likely to embrace it,” said Afshaque Ansari, trainer from Apnalaya.
