India, Khelo Rugby

In North East India, schools are very poor and lack educational resources. A school environment a typical young person attends usually has no computers, a basic classroom with chairs and often absent teachers. Some children travel up to 7km to schools whilst others walk comfortably to school, dependant on the community. Few skills are taught in schools such as financial literacy, English language skills, teamwork and organising. Furthermore, lots of children fail at Class 10 (the final year of secondary school). There are high barriers to accessing educational opportunities. Consequently, Khelo Rugby particularly focuses on this issue, providing tuition in some cases or scholarship.

On average, the typical household earns around $1000 a month. From the children Khelo Rugby work with, 20% of the young people live in extreme poverty (less than $1.25 per person per household per day).

Khelo Rugby operates in more than 30 communities in Kolkata and has since expanded to other townships including Saraswatipur, North of West Bengal, Bengaluru, and Jarmundi while supported by Atlas. Schools are very poor, and so Khelo Rugby use rugby as a vehicle to teach key life skills, including leadership, respect and equality. Furthermore, Khelo Rugby’s commitment to improving the lives of the communities is mirrored by their commitment of regular, fun rugby sessions to build the trust of the children.

Khelo Rugby are also working with ‘Future Hope’ to host an Education Pilot Project. The Studycat programme teaches the children English – a most valuable and transformational skill for these young children. Khelo Rugby educators have been trained by Studycat to run ‘pop-up’ classes using tablets supplied by the Nicholson Memorial Fund. Consequently, Studycat creates more motivated classes and a good structure for learning.