Most of our children come from the streets or construction sites or slums where education is not a priority. When they first come to us they are usually malnourished and in many cases victims of substance, emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse. They don’t have good concentration to sit in a classroom for many hours. One thing that they are naturally good at, is sports.
From our early days in 2013, we always had sports as part of the curriculum. We’ve hosted Sports days since then on different public grounds. What we were lacking was a dedicated space and infrastructure where we could get formal coaching for our children so that their natural strength and stamina could be channeled to sports performance.
Formal Coaching
Since 2019, we have moved to the Pathshala Hostel Campus grounds with a football field and basketball court on campus. Our children currently are being coached by Ms. Mohima Khatun in Football & Basketball. Mr. Vishvesh Dunakhe is coaching our children in Karate. Flo Skateboarding are training our children in Skateboarding and Mr. Dhaval for Malkhamb
Football…A Self Driven Initiative
Since 2019 our children have self organized and played inter-house football matches on a regular basis on the hostel grounds. Our girls and boys played on mixed teams. They’ve always wanted to play competitively against other teams. Starting November 2021, they’ve started weekly coaching under Baroda Football Association.
Tournament Participation & Success
Given that it has been less than a year since we’ve started formal training for our children, our Girls’ team won the K.K Vithani Memorial All Gujarat Football Tournament (May 2022). Our boys and girls teams also traveled to Goa for the BFA Cup Tournament & the Girls’ team won the Runners up trophy (May 2022). Jyoti was adjudged player of the tournament for both events. Dinesh received the man of the match award at the BFA cup. Dinesh and Sunil received promising player awards in K.K Vithani Memorial Cup, Tejal won the best goal keeper and Manisha & Hasina received players of different match awards.
Our girls were the Football junior Champions and boys were Runner’s up at Nalanda International School’s Winter Sports event. They won the Runner’s up trophy at the Total Academy Football tournament in Mumbai. In August, 2023 Dinesh, Krishna and Harshil of Pathshala were selected to play in Rangers Football Academy, Vadodara.
Athletics…naturally good
Our children are naturally good runners. They have great stamina and technique. The results were very evident when they participated in the Spandan Khel Spardha in June 2022 and won many medals across many age categories. The event was inaugurated by Ms. Ranjanben Bhatt, Vadodara MP.
