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Berlin: As the
women's football World Cup kicked off in Germany Sunday, a group
of Indian girls will take part in a parallel international
tournament -- Discover Football, a global initiative to help
disadvantaged girls challenge societal norms and make a mark.
Being held on the sidelines of FIFA Women's World Cup, Discover
Football is bringing together eight teams from across the world
for an international women's football tournament in the centre of
Berlin.
The tournament will be accompanied by a diverse cultural festival.
The June 27-July 3 tournament will see participation of women
teams from India, Afghanistan, Israel, Rwanda, Togo, Cameroon and
Brazil, as also Berlin. The teams have been selected by
Streetfootballworld from a list of 38 applicants.
Streetfootball is a Berlin-based organisation that drives a
network of local organisations that use football to provide
opportunities to disadvantaged young people and builds a coalition
of powerful partners to create social change.
Slum Soccer - the Indian team - is founded by a Nagpur-based NGO
that trains underprivileged children and youth from across India
in football.
"Football is a unique and yet a perfect vehicle that transcends
race, religion, language and gender to bring about a change in the
lives of street dwellers," Slum Soccer CEO Abhijeet Barse told
IANS here.
Barse, who is accompanying team India, said development through
sports has a track record of being successful across continents
and from our own experience.
Team India landed in Berlin Saturday and will play its first match
against team Berlin Monday at 8 p.m. local time.
The girls participating in the tournament are equally excited as
for most of them it's the first time they are visiting a foreign
land.
"Me and my mother were abandoned by my father after I was born as
he did not want a girl child. My mother worked as a labourer in
Orissa to bring me up," said 18-year-old Shehnaz Kureshi.
"When I was in Class 10 I got interested in football. My mother
and society objected to it. But I continued and I am happy to be a
part of this tournament," she added.
Kureshi's story is similar to stories of other members of the team
who have all fought social and economic battles to participate in
the event.
Slum Soccer was launched in 2001 with a vision to equip the
underprivileged to deal with and emerge from the disadvantages
riding on their homelessness using the medium of football.
"Our project was created through necessity. Its aim is to offer
much-needed sporting opportunities and personal development
programmes to disadvantaged young people across India," he said.
The event, which will be staged this year in the Willy Kressmann
stadium and the Victoria Park in Kreuzberg, Berlin, is part of the
official cultural programme of Discover Football in the Women's
World Cup year.
Besides football, the participants will take part in a lot of
cultural, sight-seeing and grooming workshops during the week-long
stay. All the participants will attend live screening of Women
World Cup matches in Berlin.
(Richa Sharma can be contacted at richa.s@ians.com)
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