BENGALURU: Bringing the corporate world in the city closer to underprivileged children, Child Rights and You (CRY) hosted a football tournament at FSV Arena on Saturday.
The tournament, organised to promote child rights, saw participation of 18 teams from various firms like Oracle, Geberit and Redbus. The five-a-side games were officiated by referees from the Karnataka State Football Association (KSFA). The Oracle team won the tournament, beating Vyasarpadi Children’s Empowerment Project 4-2 in the final.
The event, Soccer for Child Rights, was started six years ago in Vyasarpadi slums in Chennai. Since then, it has become an annual event hosted in multiple cities where corporates play against each other and also the underprivileged. The initiative was launched when ‘Master’ Thangaraj, a project holder of CRY and board members of SC – STEDS (Slum Children – Sports, Talent, Education Development Society), started engaging with children over football.
“When this tournament started, it built a platform for the higher strata of society to interact with those belonging to the lower income groups,” said Suma Ravi, director, CRY South.