Sport Support for a Better Future

During this year’s Spring Break holidays, Advait from Grade 9 and his sister, Parthvi, used their time to initiate a sports wellbeing initiative called ‘Sport Support’, in a village about two hours away from their home in Kolkata. The project focuses on offering sports equipment which can be used by the children of the village. To continue and grow their initiative, Advit and his sister will attempt to raise more funding and deliver more sports gear to more schools and students in the region. We managed to reach out to Advait for more about their initiatives and aims for the future. 

We have begun a sports library, where we provide a village with sports equipment – Advait, Grade 9

Planning and operating with their Sport Support project, was done by Advait and his siter who realised how sports is a way to better one's lifestyle, while at the same time also bringing communities together and giving people a more useful way to spend time. “We started this initiative called Sport Support recently when our mother showed us an article of something similar being done to distract children from technology and other harmful ways of spending time”, says Advait, whose team want to give benefit to people who do not have the same opportunities as other people benefit.

The project focuses on offering sports equipment which can be used by children, in return for easy membership. “We have begun a sports library, where we provide a village with sports equipment so they can use it, play sports and return them to us”, explains Advait, who does this by offering footballs, volleyballs, badminton and agility equipment, as well as chess sets. So far these have been provided through themselves and by asking their friends to donate sports equipment so that they can set up more, as well as adding other equipment. 

Advait and his sister are looking forward to widening their projects, as well as broaden their initiative and include other things, such libraries in other parts of the state. They would also like to find and appoint a coach who will be able to supervise sports. “In the near future, we would like to hire a coach from the village itself who will oversee the sports being played and improve and teach techniques”, says Advait, adding that they are in the future aiming to set up lighting for the village fields, which will make sports played after school hours. “We also want to initiate small-scale tournaments once the coaching is in place. By the end of this year, we aim to open this initiative to three more villages.”