Sport For Change Newsletter - April 2023

Happy 'International Day of Sport for Development and Peace' to all!

‘Play’ or ‘Sport’ as a development tool is getting more and more recognition across the globe. We, at Sportz Village Foundation , have been steadily working to make ‘play’ an integral part of the lives of children from public schools from early years to be able to build valuable life skills; while also enabling a pathway for talented children to succeed in sports. And this makes us stride between our two theories of ‘Play to Learn’ and ‘Learn to Play’ through evidence-based and proven in - and after-school programs for Physical Education and Sports Excellence which are currently impacting over 50,000 children across India. We are glad to have organizations support our programs across India, though a major highlight from the past quarter was increased corporate employee-volunteering initiatives integrated into existing programs.

Here are a few snapshots from the past quarter on accelerating #SportForChange in India and happy to discuss ideas to make more and more children and youth benefit through play and sport:

#SportForChange New Program Launch

KPMG Volunteers witness positive change in key developmental skills of student-beneficiaries of #SportForChange program ?

KPMG Global Services endorses holistic social change and has collaborated with us for taking the #SportForChange program across a cluster of government schools in Bengaluru. The structured sports education program engages over 1,500 children from underserved communities to improve?their health and socio-emotional skills. As an extension of the program, we have also integrated PathwayZ – a sports excellence program – and established two Sports Development Centres (SDCs) for volleyball, kho-kho, and kabaddi. 80 students have been identified for PathwayZ and are being trained to hone their skills and become high-performing athletes. We recently concluded a two-day inter-school sporting event that witnessed enthusiasm and active participation from children and teachers from KGS supported schools in Bengaluru and volunteers from KGS - making the event a huge success.

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“All the students were playing like professionals, but what made us proud was the performance of the students who are part of the sports excellence program; they not only won matches but also displayed great coordination, commitment, confidence, and leadership skills. It clearly shows the impact of Sportz Village Foundation’s program. My team and the KGS volunteers were thrilled to be part of the event.”?

– Inderpreet Kaur, Manager, Corporate Citizenship, KPMG Global Services

Building pathways for hundreds of children from a rural belt in Rajasthan to play and win!

With Chambal Fertilizers and K. K. Birla Foundation’s Project Udaan, we extend our outreach in the rural clusters of Rajasthan's Kota and Baran district across 20 schools, 6 educational institutes impacting over 3000 children. K. K. Birla Foundation strongly believes in the power of sport to nurture children and youth with essential life and leadership skills like learning & accountability, competitive aptitude, decision-making, team-building, among many others.?

Aimed at promoting sports education at nascent age as the key to instill a sporting culture for upliftment of youth and also creating new pathways for excelling in sports, Project Udaan comprises a baseline physical education program as well as PathwayZ sports excellence program. We also organize inter and intra school events and competitions to offer student-athletes a larger platform to showcase talent in a highly competitive environment. In the latest 2- day Inter-School Sports Event organized on 16th and 17th Feb’ 2023 at one of our Sports Development Centre (SDC) in Simliya, Kota, 300+ best-performing students participated in various track & field disciplines like Shot-put, Kho-Kho, Kabaddi and Tug-of-war, Relay race, 100 Mts & 200 Mts race.?

‘Yogdaan’ Employee Volunteering embedded in #SportForChange programs?

Today, organizations across the globe are adopting Employee Volunteering as a key strategy to positively impact the key stakeholders of their CSR program: Employees, Community, and Business. Sportz Village Foundation's YOGDAAN is an employee-volunteering CSR and Social Impact program to help organizations and their employees contribute their time and expertise to make lasting contributions to the communities through #SportForChange programs focused on educational, health and developmental outcomes in school children.?

Our initiatives with volunteers from Decathlon, Thomson Reuters, KMPG India and other corporate partners exhibit how employee-volunteering in the organization's social impact programs not only boosts employee enthusiasm and learning but also offers them an opportunity to positively impact the communities around them.

PathwayZ: Supporting student-athletes from Public schools to rise from grassroot to elite levels??

With an objective to enable more and more talented student-athletes from underserved communities and rural India to get access to opportunities to excel in sports and thus building a sports talent pool for the country, our PathwayZ Sports Excellence Program program is modeled to identify, nurture and support sporting talent in schools and communities across India from grassroot to elite level. PathwayZ program involves Talent Identification, Talent Development, Competition Exposure, Assessments, Sports Parenting and Sports Infrastructure and Equipment Support for student-athletes from public schools.?

Currently the program is active across 60+ schools across Noida, Lucknow, Chennai and Bengaluru regions, engaging 1200+ student-athletes in active sports training in 20+ Sports Development Centres and High-performance Learning Centres for various disciplines incl. Athletics, Football, Volleyball, Cricket and Kabaddi. About 40% of program beneficiaries are girls. 600+ student-athletes have also been selected for District, State and National level games respectively, including Khelo India Games and IKF trials. Currently, PathwayZ is supported by HCL Foundation, LatentView Analytics, Chambal Fertilizers, KPMG etc.

Girls & Sports

Let's get more and more girls to play! Happy Women’s Day!

This women’s day, we celebrated the fact that about 40% of the beneficiaries of our programs (including #SportForChange Physical Education programs in schools and Sports Excellence programs) are girls!. Playing sport has helped improve health, educational outcomes, attendance levels in school, social-emotional learning in girls. They feel confident and motivated to do well in life! Cheers to the girls, their families, teachers and the entire ecosystem for starting to prioritize play and sport for girls, as much as education!?

Here is a small video celebrating stories of girls from our #SportForChange programs:

LOC FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup India 2022 gifts footballs to the girl-athletes from Lucknow SDC

Every time she kicks a ball, she creates awareness of what is possible, for her and everyone else! LOC FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup India 2022 provides footballs to the girl-athletes from Rajkiya Balika Inter College, Gomtinagar. These girls (12 to 16 years) are beneficiaries of the Lucknow-based Sports Development Centre (SDC) and are provided with high-performance football training as part of our PathwayZ Sports Excellence program.

Awards & Accolades?

Sportz Village Foundation wins the CSR Implementing Partner Award at the 7th edition of Corporate Social Responsibility Summit & Awards 2023

As yet another but an important acknowledgement of the impact of our #SportForChange initiatives across 1300+ schools touching lives of 7 lakh+ children since 2017, Sportz Village Foundation was announced as the winner of the CSR Implementing Partner Award at the 7th edition of Corporate Social Responsibility Summit & Awards 2023 by UBS Forums Pvt. Ltd.?

The summit also offered a platform for exchange of ideas. Our Co-Founder & Head Parminder Gill shared his insights on #KeyFocusAreasInCSR along with other esteemed thought leaders Dr Nilaratan Shende, Ms. Rani Sasikumar, Mr. Sunil K., Ms. Matilda Lobo and Mr. Sanjay Khare.

Share your support towards #SportForChange programs for transforming the lives of children and youth?

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https://sportzvillagefoundation.org