Franz Gastler is not a professional football player but he has been changing the lives of young tribal girls with the game. Born and brought up in Minnesota, USA, he went to Boston University and Harvard Law School before he found his true calling, approximately 13,000 km away from home in a small village in eastern India.
A professional visit while he was working with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is what changed his life forever. He left his well paying job, gathered all his savings and opened a football academy for tribal girls in Ormanjhi, near Ranchi. And it’s because of his initiative hundreds of young girls in rural Ranchi have stepped out of their houses and taken up the game seriously.
“Some girls from the school where I volunteered as an English teacher asked me if I could coach a football team. Despite the fact that I was not a football player I said yes. At first the programme was for boys and girls, where the boys were inconsistent and the girls showed outstanding work ethic and dedication. Then a programme was especially designed for girls,” recalls Gastler. This is what got the ball rolling and Yuwa was founded in 2009.
Yuwa, meaning youth, is a non- profit organisation working with girls from underprivileged families in the interior pockets of Jharkhand. Using football as a medium to fight child marriage, human trafficking and illiteracy, Yuwa is on a mission to make every girl in charge of her own future thereby breaking the cycle of poverty permanently. Yuwa works with girls who are expected to spend time serving their families, not going to school, not studying and certainly not having fun or playing a sport.
Originally, Yuwa was started as a scholarship fund for hard- working students from a government school to attend a private English medium school. The girls selected for the scholarship would drop by once a month to just collect the fees and miss about 40- 50 school working days yearly, compared to the girls playing football who would be present every single day.
The programme started gaining momentum when an after school English class was started for the girls playing football.
Through the positive peer pressure created by daily practice, these girls started going to school every day taking a keen interest in their education and simply taking care of themselves. “Before joining they were shy, quiet girls who mumbled responses with their eyes on the ground. After months of daily practice and affirmation in a positive social network, they became confident, bold football players who weren’t afraid to introduce themselves to strangers,” recollects Gastler.
What started with one team, Yuwa is now going from strength to strength. With 42 young coaches 90 per cent of whom are girls leading daily football sessions; presently there are 430 kids in 19 teams. For a Yuwa girl to change her future she first has to believe in herself. Yuwa creates a community where girls are encouraged and supported to be ambitious leaders.
In April 2015, Rose Thomson Gastler who was managing the education process at Yuwa for the past three years founded the Yuwa School. The school started with 94 students and nine full-time teachers, apart from concentrating on academics is also helping the girls in developing their creative skills. Rose first came to India on a post- graduate fellowship studying the use of sports to empower girls.
With teachers from diverse backgrounds, the school follows the National Institute of Open Learning curriculum. Classes are not lectures but a place where the students are actively involved and are constantly challenged to think critically. Girls aging from six to eighteen are taught from world class educators and supportive volunteers. The school also has a well equipped library encouraging the girls to inculcate in reading books from all genres.
In a very short span of time, Yuwa has enabled these girls to become globe trotters. From USA, Canada to France, Denmark, Spain and all the way to Russia- these girls are striving to make their mark everywhere. Two girls travelled to Spain to participate in a video featuring Marcelo from the Real Madrid FC while two others took part in an Equal Playing Field Initiative to promote girls and women’s football in Jordan, in 2018. Two travelled to Qatar and Russia for the Generation Amazing Youth Ambassadors Program in conjunction with the World Cup and seven others went to USA for the ENVEST Exchange Program for two weeks in June- July this year. In 2013, 18 girls participated in the Donosti Cup and Gasteiz Cup in Spain and secured third place in the latter.
Franz Gastler received the Microsoft Person of Action award in 2017 and in 2015 he was awarded the Cequin WOWmen Award Celebrating Men for Women. Yuwa was acknowledged as the all Asia winner at the 2012 Ashoka Changemakers for Innovative Secondary Education for Skills Enhancement.
“Our vision is to build a Yuwa Centre which would provide a world-class education to 300 girls, with one third of the students living in residential hostels. The new Yuwa Centre will also act as a base for Yuwa School and Yuwa football outreach programmes. Here, coaches will receive training and support and have access to resources to design high-quality age-appropriate practices and life-skills workshops that will address critical health and rights topics. In a hub-and-spoke model, the Yuwa Centre will support smaller village bases throughout the Jharkhand region”, said Gastler.
In villages, girls are constantly put down as being less valuable than boys. They are discouraged from studying and wanting to be ambitious and are treated as worthless creatures with their only future being that of a wife and mother. Yuwa girls are an inspiration to others in not just their community but throughout India and across the globe.
“There is no shortage of girls here who want to play. It's extremely rare that you find a girl who is sent by her parents, because a majority of girls face a lot of opposition from family members in coming every day. Girls in Yuwa have to fight a lot of fights in their journey to empowerment, but they've become much better fighters along the way”, said Gastler.