The soccer girls of team Yuwa will soon interact and deliberate on sanitation and anti-violence issues with local school girls. The interaction will not be restricted to Ranchi but will be held in other districts as well. The decision was taken on Friday when they were conferred as ‘United Nations International Child Emergency Fund (UNICEF) celebrity supporter’.
UNICEF Jharkhand chief Job Zachariah said, “The girls will basically help in the sports for development campaign launched around one month back covering 480 villages in 12 districts. The programme motivates 14 to 24-year-old school drop outs on how to prevent social crimes like child abuse and learning good habits like washing hands before meals besides regular practice in their preferred sports discipline.”
“Peer to peer communication will give a scope of learning personality development skills from Yuwa players who have visited Spain and America and are comparatively confident than other rural girls,” he added.
UNICEF will soon hold a medical test for all these adolescent players as some are said to be suffering from anemia. Also, they will train the girls on what to address in issues like malnutrition, child marriage and hand washing wherein UNICEF’s work is focused.
Meanwhile, girls expressed their fortune in associating with UNICEF for the third time. “We had earlier supported UNICEF in constructing girl’s toilets in villages. Recently, we joined the organization and Jharkhand police for a campaign against child violence. It feels good to be a part for such causes,” players Supriya, Sita and Urmila said.
Significantly, ace archer Deepika Kumari is also a celebrity sponsor of UNICEF helping in spreading the message of sanitation and child rights particularly within Jamshedpur.
UNICEF however, is mulling to involve the girls in their campaigns without affecting their regular school attendance, football practice and tuitions. In 2013, the these girls brought laurels to the State by securing third in the Gasteiz Cup in Spain and made it to the quarter finals of the Donosti Cup, Spain’s biggest football tournament.
According to Yuwa programme director Rose Thomson, Yuwa is one of the largest girls’ football programmes in India. It uses football as a platform to empower girls in the poorest of communities in Jharkhand along with a platform for self-expression.
UNICEF collaborates globally with renowned personalities from the field of sports, music and the performing and film arts. These celebrity supporters are chosen based on the respect and appeal they command as genuine humanitarians.