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Where do our children play?
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The value of sports should never be played down in a child's multiple intelligence, believes Saumil Majmudar
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ALL WORK AND NO PLAY... Saumil Majmudar's aim in starting Sportz Village was to provide a multi-training facility for every five-km radius PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.
We've all heard the endless speeches about acute competition and careers being made or broken by a fractional difference in marks. And we've all seen the effects these speeches have on parenting in our country. As unwilling as parents may be to accept their bias, the overarching emphasis on academic excellence often completely overshadows the focus on extracurricular activities.
The lack of facilities needed to encourage sports only compounds the issue. Consequently, most parents are almost blind to the role sports play in shaping an individual physically, socially and emotionally.
Recognising the importance of sports in the overall development of a child, Saumil Majmudar, Director of Sportz Village, developed a concept of training children in multiple sports to cater to this development. Says Majmudar: "The idea is not make the child excel in just one sport but to introduce sports as part of their development and enable the child to enjoy it as an activity."
The idea of a sports village occurred to this engineer and marketing professional when he and his colleagues, Jaishankar and Jithender Joshi, realised the lack of facilities for their children to play a sport of their choice. "Popular sports like cricket or tennis have training camps but not activities such as soccer or basket ball. If children simply want to play these games, they are constrained by the lack of space or a proper sports field. Apartment complexes with club houses do not provide such expanses of space for these kind of sports," he laments.
Five-km radius
The original vision behind the Sportz Village was to provide a multi-training facility for every five-km radius to ensure that "children have access to such a facility and can make sports a part of their daily activities".
So far, however, his vision has remained just that, with him unable to procure the land needed for creating such a facility. Says Majmudar: "Hiring land from a private person is very expensive and also uneconomical as it increases the cost of training per child. To reduce costs and make training accessible to children at lower costs, we approached various schools, builders as well as the government. So far we have been unsuccessful."
Lack of land meant that his training is confined to just one place, that too in a fairly inaccessible area. "The concept would have taken off if schools recognised the benefits of such training for their students."
While referring to the instinctive need in every child to play, which needs to be nurtured and developed as sports "inherently inculcate a discipline, a team spirit and social skills besides leadership qualities", he admonishes parents for not recognising this potential.
"If parents realise the potential that sports have in building the personality of an individual, they would perhaps put pressure on the schools to enhance it in their curriculum. But this is sadly missing."
According to him, tapping school facilities would be ideal, as that would take care of the needs of children in the respective schools as well as those living in the area.
But with schools unreceptive to such an idea and the government too unwilling to lend a hand as his venture is essentially of a private nature, Majmudar has only one option to fulfil his dream.
"Perhaps we will have to look at the whole thing as a non-profit venture to realise our vision. If the whole thing is approached from the social angle, the Government might be able to provide us with land."
Still, he seems, presently, to be far from realising his dream of having one facility in every five-km radius.
Saumil Majmudar can be contacted on 98860 04133.
This column features those who choose to veer off the beaten track.
NANDHINI SUNDAR
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