Players
TALENT IDENTIFICATION AND SKILL DEVELOPMENT
EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
To excel as a basketball player and an academic student, it is of utmost importance to ensure one’s emotional and physical well-being. Realizing this, DAF drives fitness sessions, nutrition drives, individual student-coach engagement sessions and parent-coach group discussions to understand the contextual challenges of the children we are working with. Our coaches are trained and go through regular refresher sessions on facilitating the emotional and physical development of our students.
EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
Through continuous engagement with the prominent schools and universities in the region, DAF supports students with their higher education and better basketball avenues through sports scholarships, documentation and application processes. Many of our students have secured 100% scholarships to colleges and all of them were first generation college goers from their family.
Videos
Case studies
Kapil Sharma
Kapil comes from a family of five where his father is the sole earner. with no exposure to any organised sports in his school or his neighbourhood, he picked up basketball at the age of 13 when he was one of the first five children to enrol in the dribble academy’s coaching programme in gejha.
Basketball not only gave him a safe space to be himself but also an avenue to pursue his dreams through hard work, resilience and discipline. with the support of hcl foundation, daf was able to support his athletic and academic requirements, enabling him to secure a full scholarship to study at suguna college of arts and commerce in coimbatore, tamil nadu, in 2020. kapil hopes to inspire more children to play basketball and wants to be a basketball coach post his studies.
Urmila “Kajal“ Singh
Urmila was one of the first girls to learn Basketball in Gejha village. She has been playing basketball for the past 8 years. She is part of a six member family where her mother was the sole earner of the family, working as a housemaid.
Kajal has been appointed as a coach in Gejha village, Noida. She was a student coach for the last one year before getting promoted as a full time coach for Dribble Academy. She is now inspiring many boys and girls to play sports for a healthy lifestyle, and to make a living out of the thing you love the most.
Kanchan Pal, Shalini Upadhyay & Sonali Kumari
Kanchan is the eldest child of a family of five. Her father is an auto driver and is the sole earning member of the family.
Shalini belongs to a family of five. Her father is a contractual worker in the Noida authority (cleaning department) and is the only earning member.
Sonali belongs to a family of seven. Her father is a Sales Manager in a local company and is the sole earning member. All of her four siblings are also part of Dribble Academy Foundation.
None of the girls had played an organised sport prior to joining Dribble Academy.
All three girls, after picking up basketball from Dribble Academy, have represented Gautham Budh Nagar at the state (Uttar Pradesh) championships level and represented Delhi at Jr. NBA championship. They have been able to secure admission in Ramagya School, one of the top schools in Noida on the basis of excellence in basketball.
Shivani Kumari
Shivani joined DAF when she was 10 years old. She comes from a family of seven where her father is the sole earner. They live in a small one room apartment in the Gejha village. It was her brother who joined DAF first. On learning about his sisters, the DAF team encouraged the parents to send their daughters too. Shivani took to the game like fish to water.
Despite not being able to participate in inter-school competitions, since her school did not have a basketball programme, Shivani continued to work on her game on the DAF courts. Her skills became apparent to everybody who were present at the few local tournaments she participated. Based on her skills, she was admitted to Moti Lal Nehru School of Sports (Rai) where she got the opportunity to play at prestigious tournaments such as Woodstock Invitational, zonals and state. She was also invited to play in the New York Summer League Circuit in the USA (though she couldn’t participate due to personal challenges at the time). This year, Shivani, through her excellence in academics and basketball, was accepted into Ramjas College (University of Delhi) to pursue Economic (Hons). She is not only the first DAF student but also one of very few from the whole of Gejha to get admitted to Delhi University, inspiring many in the region. Shivani aims to play for India one day.
Chandni Singh
Chandni was 7 years old when she joined the DAF program. Chandni comes from a humble family of five with her father being the sole earner of the family as a gas cylinder distributor.
Within a year she proved to be special. Her ability to grasp different drills was at an elite level. While a lot of girls would shy away from competing with boys, she would always want to go up against them. Every year, she started grow as a player and a leader, soon impressing everyone who visited the DAF courts.
Recently, at 12 years of age, Chandni got selected for the Jr.NBA Delhi team where she outshined everybody and even got selected amongst the Top 12 players from across the nation. This is just the beginning for Chandni and we are sure she will make all of us proud.
Dinesh & Sachin
Dinesh and Sachin are our superstars. Both of them joined DAF when they were 9-10 years old and did not let anything hamper their pursuit for excellence in basketball. Both of them studied in lower income private school in Noida which provided no exposure to sports. They took to the game like fish to water.
Dinesh and Sachin represented India in the Jr NBA World Championship in Orlando, USA. They also secured 100% scholarship to in St. Claret Pre-university College in Bangalore. They continue to inspire all of us with their determination and hard work.
Deepak Jain
Deepak is coming from a family of 8 where his father is the sole earning member as an electrician. He was the only student who used to travel from Shahpur to Gejha after the closure of the basketball programme at NEM school. He used to travel regularly to the gully courts in Gejha on a cycle. His passion, dedication and resilience paid off when he was adjudged the MVP of the DAF inhouse tournament. Deepak has also motivated 6 other students from his area to take up DAF basketball coaching.
Quotes from our students
“(Where I come from) No one allows girls to step out of their homes. I was allowed to step out only because of basketball. I was able to travel and interact with different people because of this game. I have learned a lot from Dribble Academy – as a student, as a player and now as a coach.” – Urmila “Kajal” Singh, 18 years old
“Dribble Academy is helping us in different ways. Our coaches teach us basketball and help us in our studies, and make us more curious to study more and more. I am very grateful to be a part of the dribble academy. I hope Dribble Academy to help more and more children so that they can even dream big and will be able to achieve their aim through academy as we are doing” – Shalini Upadhyay, 16 years old
“When my three sisters and brother started playing basketball with Dribble Academy Foundation, it changed our society’s thinking towards sports participation and development”. – Sonali Kumari, 16 years old
“Basketball has given us something to look forward to and keep growing to secure a future for us and our family” – Kanchan Pal, 15 years old