B When Anusha was in Class 7, her Physical Education (PE) teacher encouraged her to play for her school in a girls’ rural cricket tournament organized by the Anantapur Sports Academy (ASA).
Anusha hails from a remote village called Bandlapalli in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. His parents are farmers who own a small plot of land, and his father also works as a hired tractor driver. Playing sports seriously was not an option for him. But the then 13-year-old left-arm spinner was named player of the tournament and won a scholarship from ASA to attend its residential academy.
Now 20 years old, Anusha has played for Andhra Pradesh Under-16, Under-19 and Women’s Senior State Team.
“Playing sports at ASA has helped (me) in so many ways,” she says. “It made me more confident than ever. It gave me exposure and financial support by playing for the senior state team, which I needed… Also, playing at ASA gave me the opportunity to train at one of the best cricket facilities in the state as I learned cricket. I was able to improve my skills.”
Anusha is currently in her third year of graduation at PVKK Degree College, where she is pursuing a B minor in Computers. But her dream is to “play cricket at the highest level and (one day) represent the Indian women’s team.”
Great emphasis on the bottom line
ASA is part of the Rural Development Trust (RDT), which has been working in communities across Andhra Pradesh for over 50 years. In the 70s and 80s, the Trust taught Kabaddi To encourage children to be active, but this was done informally. Sports became a formal and integral part of its program only in the late 90s. That’s when ASA was born. Over time, ASA programs have expanded to include eight sports such as cricket, football, hockey, judo, tennis, kabaddi, softball and recently archery.
“In the beginning, our program provided financial and material support to teams that went out to compete,” says Moncho Ferrer, RDT’s program director. “Later, we started organizing programs like grassroots tournaments and camps to ensure children access to the fundamental right to play in safe and quality play spaces, which later turned into a year-long program with an emphasis on holistic development of children. All levels of the program.
The organization’s programs follow a traditional pyramid structure. At the bottom is their grassroots program, which is run entirely in government schools in each community. Then there are the development centers, and at the top sits the residential program, based on the ASA Sports Village built between 2000 and 2002.
“The main emphasis is on the grassroots,” says ASA Executive Director Sai Krishna Pulluru. “All sports except tennis have grassroots programmes. We also have about 104 or 105 (development) centres, which include youth clubs, government schools and sports centres.
According to Pulluru, the difference between grassroots and development centers is that the latter have their own physical infrastructure, such as computer labs and classrooms, and they provide English classes as well as nutrition. The residential program at Anantapur Sports Village is for children who have the potential to excel in sports.
The ASA also runs leagues for each of its sports from August to December with matches taking place every Sunday. The rural cricket tournament is the longest running league, and is the crown jewel of the organization. According to Pulluru, more than 100 villages participated in the tournament, in which the final was held at the old cricket ground in Anantapur. However, it was recently restructured and now comprises 16 teams each in the U-12 mixed-gender, U-16 and U-19 age categories. It is also named Eternal Premier League (APL).
ASA also runs athletics meets for girls.
“In these leagues, we scout talent and offer full scholarships – academics, boarding and lodging, and access to competition – to those who can pursue it,” says Pulluru.
‘joy and happiness’
Programs are designed for children between the ages of 6 and 18. Over time, life skills have been added to the programs, for example, a coach may conduct sessions on topics such as communication, inequality or gender awareness.
At the start of the season, 6,700 children participated in the program and in previous years, nearly 1.5 lakh children have participated in the program.
“It’s a dream come true for me to be a part of a program like this,” he says. “When I finish my work, leave the office and see the children playing, I can see the genuine joy on their faces. It gives me a feeling of happiness and joy. That’s one thing that really drives me.”
In 2016–17, the ASA started a mixed-gender festival where girls and boys compete together, although it is reserved for younger children only. Age depends on the sport — for cricket it’s U-12, soccer U-9, and softball U-14. The participants are brought to the same venue once in two months and the final round is played at the two-day festival Anantapur Sports Village.
12-year-old Y Lahiri from Dharmavaram was first introduced to ASA a few years ago when he played in the Mixed Gender U-9 Football Cup. In 2021, at the age of 11, he was awarded a scholarship to attend the academy.
“I like playing (football) because I can make a lot of new friends and also travel to other places,” says Lahiri. “I can maintain fitness by playing regular sports.” He credits ASA with teaching him new skills such as teamwork and communication, as well as values such as respect and fair play.
“I’m interested in refereeing,” he adds. “I want to become a professional FIFA referee where I can referee national and international matches.”
ASA relies mainly on volunteer coaches and physical education teachers—“they’re the backbone of the program,” Pulluru says. The program also paved the way for participants to become trainers. “Not everyone can make it to the next level. We need more coaches to build a sports culture.”
ASA encourages those interested to join the one-year youth leadership program and become a volunteer or shadow coach. As part of the programme, they are given the opportunity to organize events and conduct workshops. The ASA supports those who complete the program and wish to become professional coaches by helping them obtain their coaching licenses from various state associations.
In particular, ASA wants to increase the number of female trainers in rural areas. “Although there is still a long way to go, it is worth noting the changing perception among the wider community (especially parents, teachers) about boys and girls playing sports equally,” says Ferrer. “The program has enabled young people to acquire skills to enhance their higher education and livelihood opportunities, particularly as coaches and/or referees.”
‘Sports have made me who I am today’
One of those trainers is P Hindu Kumar (24). He was selected for the residential program in 2014 at the age of 14 and is now a trainer at the institute. He comes from a village called De Honnur, and said his parents were “very happy” when he was selected, because it meant he would get a good education and also continue to play sports.
Kumar said, ‘Games have made me who I am today. “It gave me the opportunity to have a career as a coach, (and) I learned a lot from playing the game; most importantly believing in myself and my team, and helping each other achieve goals, which is the most important thing in any part of life or profession. are important aspects.
The program also taught him to develop empathy, he says. “(The) program helped me in times of need, as I come from a family where my parents are farmers and daily wage labourers,” says Kumar. “Today I can demonstrate the same qualities as a person and professionally working with children from a background similar to mine.”
To measure the results of its programs, ASA uses different criteria for each level of their pyramid – Grassroots, League and Empower. At the grassroots level, they use the number of children in the program and the number of clubs they have established. In the case of leagues, which are open to all clubs, they measure the number of children participating from each club in the league. At the empowerment level, they track the number of youth leaders and volunteers in the program, as well as the number of internships and job opportunities they facilitate.
The ASA also uses the Social-Emotional Development Index to track self-esteem and self-confidence among children, as well as social skills such as communication and relationship building. The organization has also developed a gender parity index that includes the number of female coaches at the program level, the ratio of girls to boys at each center and the overall ratio of boys to girls across all its programs. The ASA also has a section in its questionnaire for 10- to 15-year-olds that aims to measure their perceptions of gender equality. Students should rate how much they agree or disagree with statements, such as “I believe that members of the opposite sex can participate equally in sports” and “I believe that everyone is equal”.
As far as funding goes, ASA benefits from being part of the Rural Development Fund, which has its own resources. On top of this, the academy has project partners such as the La Liga Foundation and the Rafael Nadal Foundation. However, according to Pulluru, raising funds from corporates is challenging due to lack of knowledge on how they can use CSR funds in tribal and rural areas.
“During the early years of ASA, many questioned what NGOs should do with sports, but now we see many sports working well for development programs across India,” says Ferrer. “So, we are humbled to see the faith we placed in the new program in the early 2000s grow to reach nearly 8,000 children every year in eight different sports. Over the years, we have had many personal accomplishments, but recently to share, I B See Anusha, was recently shortlisted for the Women’s Premier League (WPL) auction as an achievement for her and our programme.
Written by Sharwa Tasneem; Edited by Divya Sethu