For slum kids, football provides an escape in Chennai

CHENNAI: When Suriya was 1, his alcoholic father stabbed his mother at their home in the Kalyanapuram slum in Vysarpadi. Since then Suriya, now 16, has been living with his grandmother and studying in a corporation school. His only escape from his family’s violent past is playing football.
For more than 300 boys and girls like him from the cramped Vyasarpadi slums, heaven is the locality’s football ground where they learn to dribble their way out of trouble.
Most of these kids were labourers or did drugs or affected by a traumatic history. Until Slum Children Sports Talent Education Development Society (SCSTEDS) and Child Rights and You (CRY) volunteers took them under their wing in 2006.
Now they go to public schools or study under sports quota in private institutions.
On Saturday — National Day for the Girl Child — the slum kids beat nine corporate teams, including HDFC Bank, Vodafone, Ford, to win a tournament.
They had earlier represented India at the 2010 World Youth Cup in Sweden. One of them, Shaktheeshwari, 22, was the only TN player in the Indian team at the 2012 Homeless World Cup in France.
Football is a passion in Vyasarpadi — Chennai’s Brazil. “Everyday is a struggle here, from drinking water to incomplete flyovers. So the players channelise their anger on the field,” said SCSTEDS coaches coordinator N Thangaraj.
The field, a muddy patch, was last year converted by the corporation into a grassy 40 sq m flood-lit ground where the kids, mostly barefoot, battle it out in five-a-side games. N Valarasu, one of the few with football boots, dropped out in class 7 after his teachers abused him verbally and hit him. He became a sales boy earning 100 a day, before SCSTEDS scouts ‘caught’ him.
He didn’t think he would study again but he is back at the same corporation school with a more positive attitude.
For the girls, life is still difficult but they match the boys on the field and in class. “After school, we have to wash vessels and clean the house before we leave for practice,” said K Sandhya, who has just returned from a state tourney. “In school, teachers use foul language. Football is the only thing that makes us happy,” said R Devi.
“Many go for early morning practice with just a glass of water. That’s all they can afford. But they know that if want to be trained in football they have to be in school,” said CRY media advocacy manager (south) Varsha Pillai.