Athletic Training (Non Academic Talent Training)
We train students for free from rural areas who are underprivileged. We provide them
food, transport expenses for their daily training. We provide sportswear and sponsor them
for different competitions.
Snapshot of “Athletic Training”
Subramani, who is a Marathon athlete from a poor family background approached us for
sponsorship for his food and athletic training. That led us to ponder further into the state of
talented athletes in rural areas. We found that the students of Zone 3 and Zone 4 of
Pondicherry which comprises the rural areas of Pondicherry were not able to compete with the
students of zone 1 and 2 (town areas of Pondicherry) for the following reasons:
1. No coach or training to sharpen their skills and talents
2. Inadequate nutritious food
3. No sportswear (Girls would run with long skirts and with no footwear)
4. No access to the professional tracks (ground) such as in town (Indira Gandhi Stadium) to
practice
If these talented children were given these facilities, they could make a career in what they
are best at, if not become a champion. This would just not change their lifestyle but would
influence their community to do what they are best at. This would promise a flourishing future
instead of struggling for survival. We wanted to change the lives of these young talented
underprivileged children and decided to provide what they were deprived of.
The activity started with sending letters to Principals for permission to allow their students for the selection process. As expected from any Government school, there wasn’t a single response for the n number of couriers we sent. Then we had to go to each school and plead the Principal for permission. School after school, we had to convince. As expected the response was sluggish. Then we printed notice papers and distributed them. Most of the schools did not have a playground where we could conduct the selection events. So we had to find common venues for multiple schools. After several rounds of talks and convincing, we successfully got permission in 5 schools - Veerampattinam, Bahoor, Abishegapakkam, Villianur, Madagadipattu (the only schools which had so called playgrounds) and conducted the events on Feb 20th, 21st, 2004. The participants were from Bahoor, Kirumaampakkam, Thavalakuppam, Netapakkam, Mangalam, Ariyanguppam, Kanuvapet, Veerampattinam, Villianur, Karikalampakkam, Abishegapakkam, Madagadipattu, Thirubuvanai, Madugarai, Sorapattu, Seliamedu, Manaveli, etc. The events that were conducted were 600m, 100m, Long Jump, High Jump, Shotput. The winners were given 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes. The students were bubbling with enthusiasm to participate in the events. They were gleaming with joy and excitement.
We had selected the final list of students who could undergo the Observation Camp with the help of an athletic coach we hired. Since we wanted to give the coaching in a professional track, we sought the permission of the Sports Council to practice in Indira Gandhi Stadium. Now you know why it took us such a delay to conduct the Observation Camp. We did not have volunteers at that time. For every visit to the Government office, Gayathri had to get the permission from her office as it would be during her office hours. After desperately following up, we were asked to get the permission of each student's parents and School's Principal. After submitting all the permission letters, we were given permission to access Indira Gandhi Stadium. We inaugurated the Observation camp at Abishegapakkam on December 12th, 2004 with 23 students. We distributed sweets, chocolates, biscuits and food (breakfast), reimbursed transportation charges.
After the 10 day observation camp, during the closing ceremony on December 22nd, 2004 we distributed T-Shirts, chocolates, food, reimbursed transportation charges.
Thus commenced the Free Athletic Training and goes on till date. We sponsor the registration fees, travel expenses for these students to take part in Athletic events. So far they had won prizes in Pondicherry Marathon, Chennai Marathon, Regional Meet and Nationals. We expect Nandini who has been trained by us for 4 years to get engineering in sports quota as she had won several prizes in athletics. We take great joy in bringing up her talent and take the leap to success. We had also found another gem Mangai who is winning a lot of prizes and hence getting benefited by our training.
