Fighting this very idea are 55 girls from Laxmipur village of Siwan district in Bihar. Battling insults, resistance, and old stereotypes, these young girls are training in sports at the Rani Laxmibai Sports Academy, under the guidance of their geography teacher and coach, Sanjay Pathak. Just like the girls he is training, the 47-year-old government school teacher had to fight many battles. He provides training free of cost and his efforts and sacrifices have produced 70 national and international players in football, handball, athletics, and other sports over the past 10 years. Sanjay is not a formal coach, and is doing this out of pure passion for grooming young talent in his region. His journey to becoming a sports coach began in 2009, after he was posted to Adarsh government middle school in the village.
Village girls go global
Sanjay tells two girls, Tara and Putul Khatoon, wanted to participate in the local sports tournament. It took them some time to convince Sanjay, who eventually agreed to register them. To his surprise, the girls won a gold medal in athletics. They also participated in the Panchayat Yuva Khel Abhiyan at the district and state levels, and earned gold, silver and bronze in different categories.This incident compelled Sanjay to think beyond conventional academic teaching."I thought if the girls performed so well without any coaching, there must be many such others in the village. I felt it was my duty to enable holistic development of students and extend my role from academic teaching. I started training them before and after school hours," he says.
Sanjay began training the girls on the school ground. Inspired by Tara and Putul, other girls soon joined. Over the next couple of months, around 100 girls from the village joined him to play football, rugby, handball and for athletics. Sanjay started learning about football from YouTube and other online media. "The girls toiled hard in fields, and had great stamina, endurance, and strength. But they lacked skills, so I began grooming them, even though I was never a sports person myself," he says. By 19 November 2009, Sanjay had a girls' football team ready to compete at district and state levels. The girls went on to play in several competitions and earned recognition.
One of them was Amrita Kumari, who played football in the Under-14 category in France and Sri Lanka in 2013. She later qualified for and headed the Under-16 national team. Nisha Kumari was chosen in the Under-14 national football team in 2015. Sanjay also focussed on preparing a team in handball and athletics. Usha Kumari was one of the girls, and won a silver in 400 metres in Haridwar in 2015 and 2016. The list goes on, and these players have represented India in Nepal, Tajikistan, Beirut, Lebanon and other national sports competitions.
In January 2019, Sanjay also opened a trust to seek donations. He says with the amount of resistance and opposition they faced from the village, he could never expect any financial support from locals or family members. "I used my salary to sponsor food, travel, and other expenses. Whenever I would spend on, say, buying a pair of shoes for one player, need for another pair, or a football, would arise. I sold my gold rings to fund their coaching. I requested my wife to mortgage her gold, worth Rs 35,000, for construction of the building," he recalls, adding, "As expenses scaled, family members asked if I was serving the nation, or making my family bankrupt." Their trust was restored when Sanjay was finally able to seek financial assistance from outside. People began making tiny donations like giving footballs, shoes, and even Rs 100 or so at times. In recent years, organisations from the UK, Netherlands and the US have donated money.
Despite the incredible achievements of this team, both Sanjay and the girls have had to face severe backlash from their community.
Source:https://ift.tt/2Z14Kdy