Reality Gives in collaboration with YUWA will provide a football program as a platform for 70 young women to gain confidence through the powerful and positive influence of team sport. We will work with girls in Dharavi (Mumbai), one of Asia's biggest slums who are neglected, dropped out of school, married-off too early and with little opportunity or expectation for their lives beyond housework and raising children.
YUWA started their football program in the state of Jharkhand, in North Central India, a region infamous for child marriage, human trafficking and lack of opportunities for girls. In Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums the situation is slightly different but also unfortunate - girls are not allowed to finish their education, get married in the age of 15 and spend their days with housework or hard inadequate labour. An escape from the day-to-day grind of their lives is missing.
Yuwa offers the same life-lessons found in most sports programs, instilling confidence and developing positive peer pressure through teamwork. But they also go further: Daily practice and a team platform allow access to large numbers of at-risk girls. Yuwa works with these girls to try to find a creative solution to any impediments and encourage them to take advantage of available opportunities or capitalize on new opportunities that they offer like programs in health, education, and livelihood.
Yuwa has seen amazing results. In their first team in Jharkhand, not a single girl has married below the age of 18, even though several of their older sisters had been married off at age 15. But the real impact is on the attitude of the girls. They have seen a level of dedication to practice that is unheard of in most amateur sports leagues with one girl practicing 300 out of 360 days! We hope to see the same motivation and dedication to achievement in our team of 70 girls in Mumbai.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
