In association with The Australian Consulate-General and Apnalaya NGO, U Sports’ U Mumba Kabaddi team aims to use Kabaddi as a tool for women’s empowerment at their training camp in Nasik.

U Sports helmed by Ronnie Screwvala and Supratik Sen, the U Mumba Kabaddi team has been working with the Australian Consulate-General towards women’s empowerment for the past few seasons of the Pro Kabaddi League. The Australian Consulate-General runs programs with an NGO called Apnalaya that aims to use Kabaddi as a tool for women’s empowerment. Apnalaya helps underprivileged girls and women to overcome obstacles and excel in the different aspects of life.

Last week, 7 girls from the NGO played and trained amongst the U Mumba Kabaddi squad players during their visit to the team’s training camp in Nasik. This activity was spun over 3 days with a special training session by the coach Sanjeev Kumar Baliyan. The girls got a chance to learn and hang out with some of their favourite kabaddi stars. Post the training sessions, 4 sports specialists from Australia visited the camp to interact with the team coach and players about the upcoming season in July. 

Talking about the activity, Co-Founder and MD of U Sports, Supratik Sen said, “At U Sports, we consider it very important to promote and enhance sports at grass root levels and especially amongst youth and women. Being associated with the Australian Consulate-General and its partner NGO Apnalaya, is a matter of prestige for us as it enables us to give back to society. The girls at the NGO are extremely talented and have tremendous potential in them and I am glad if we could contribute to their growth even a little bit. We aim to be associated with the Consulate and promote sports at the grass root levels.”

James Middleton, Vice-Consul at the Australian Consulate-General Mumbai said, “It’s inspiring to see the enthusiasm that the Apnalaya girls brought to the camp and U Mumba’s generosity in hosting them. The Consulate sponsors programs like this through our Direct Aid Program, which supports local community efforts towards poverty reduction and achieving sustainable development. The U Mumba camp was a great opportunity to use sport as a positive influence to empower these young women and help give them the life skills and the confidence they need. Hopefully the girls had an experience they won’t soon forget and we’ll see a few of them go on to be world-famous kabaddi superstars!”

Dr Arun Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Apnalaya said, “The denial of access to a playground is denial of right to childhood. In the case of girls, this invariably results in banishing them from public life itself. Through Kabaddi, Apnalaya brings the girls out from the margin of the Mumbai city to an open skies of opportunities and possibilities. We are grateful to our committed partners, ACG and U-Mumba, for helping us realize our goals of empowering girls and women.”