It was a one-of-its kind Sunday morning for IT geeks and corporate professionals. Not only were they sweating it out under the blazing sun, away from their comfortable AC rooms, they also found themselves battling it out against players from some of Chennai’s poorest streets in a football field.
Professionals from four companies including Ford, TCS-IT, HCL and Accenture were playing against the award winning SCSTEDS team, a team of students largely from the slums in and around Vysarpadi area.
The Soccer for Child Rights match was organised by Child Rights and You (CRY) to spread awareness about child rights through soccer in the city. The event is part of their ‘Vote for Child Rights’ campaign, ahead of General Elections.
“Such an event is a great opportunity for our students to showcase their skills and the challenges they face everyday. Some of them in our team are national-level players but it is still difficult to get these students the sports gear and nutritious food. Some of the players are forced to relocate to far flung areas due to slum clearance. In spite of proving their talent even in the international sphere, they get sidelined in the city during important sports meets. Such events will help bring awareness about such problems,” said the coach of SCSTEDS, N Thangaraj.
The sports meet will be the last of the public events of the CRY for their Vote of Child Rights Campaign that began in November last year. “We will continue with awareness programmes. As part of the campaign, CRY has presented a 10-point agenda for child rights to the various political parties. Once all the parties come up with their manifestos we will be analysing them based on how much value they have given for child rights,” said Suma Ravi, regional director of CRY.
The 10-point agenda is focused on the RTI, the ICDS scheme, healthcare for children, child labour and rights of children with disabilities to mention a few.