5 Things I learnt While Adopting A School
– Pradyot Voleti
When we started Dribble Academy Foundation , it was an evening program in one village in noida , the response was great more children were coming in the evening in a village where not a single child had played any organised sport , seeing so many kids passionately come there on a broken half court was overwhelming however i was aching to do more , there was a void where only certain children from certain schools were coming to our program , even though the govt school is right around the corner we had very little participation from them almost bare minimal , the idea of doing an evening program was to bridge the gap between different schools and that children from the entire village could participate . 
One day I thought why not introduce basketball in different schools with bare minimal resources like a wooden hoop and do a hour before school starts in the govt school , slowly within 2-3 weeks we had over 40-50 Children coming before school and started learning the game of Basketball , in a few months we started even seeing more and more children participating in our evening program to the extent that we were and are still falling short of space to cater to all the children . In Villages specially Urban Slums Schools have bare minimum space and even if there is a space there is a lack of a sporting culture , most even lack a PE Teacher even though the govt has made some sports activities mandatory in all govt and private schools .
So hence I thought of sharing 5 Important areas when adopting a school
1. Fun
Engage the children in a fun and challenging way and get their interest going . Sports has to be an important part of the curriculum if we want to make India a sporting nation , school teachers admin and the govt have to play a key role in emphasising the importance of sports. There are plenty of sports which can be played with bare minimal infrastructure
2.Plenty of Competitions
When we hear of competition in India we hear of the districts or the state tournaments majorly however most schools do not have the resources to send their children for competition etc but what we all can do is to create competition within the children of the school , some schools do have a system of Inter house competition or a sports day but that happens once a year , if we want to create a deep interest in sports we need to have some form of competitions on a monthly if not weekly basis . Children need to be looking forward to the tournaments and most importantly more such competitions need to be organised for teachers after all they are the ones who are mentors and role models to the children , if we want them to emphasise sports they themselves need to be sports friendly and active .
3. Involve the Parents
When we started organising basic competitions for the children we realised that the children had no idea about the sport their children were excelling at , as a matter of fact parents hardly get time to watch their children compete . Competitions need to happen at a time convenient for parents and a great way to do that would be during PTA( Parent teacher meetings ) Small fun competitions , now when we organise tournaments in Gejha we have over 300-400 People who come to watch a game .
4.Involve the Stakeholders
If collaborating with a school make sure that the school is investing into that program in some way or the other For ex it could be building the Basketball court or sponsoring the Coaches salary but it is vital to have a buy in from the stakeholders for a long term sustainability program .Make sure the school principals , the education officers etc are in the loop with the activities you are conducting and invite them to come see the different competitions ,often they are busy signing documents and don’t get to see the real impact your creating
5.Make Leaders from the village
Last but not the least make sure that children from that village are picking up responsibilities and becoming mentors to the other children from the village , there’s nothing like having a role model from within the village it could be as simple as appointing a senior student to teach juniors how to dribble the ball under pressure or letting them take a practice , its a great way to boost their self esteem and make them confident leaders on and off the court .