Sports

Tata Trusts’ Sports for Development Program will identify and nurture talents in football from the North-Eastern states of India. The Football Program focuses on early interventions with children to help impart learning in physical, social, cognitive, and communicative skills. Our sports interventions are guided by an ecosystem driven approach working to build an environment of opportunity and excellence for the pursuit of sport as a viable avenue for professional career building.

Our focus is threefold –

  • To promote the vibrant culture of sports for good health and attitude;
  • To engage with disadvantaged children through early-stage interventions in sports, life skills, and academics;
  • To nurture excellence and ability to aspire for national honours.

Football Program:

Vision: To build and operate a successful grassroots football development ecosystem model which is replicable and will play a pivotal role in the grassroots development of Indian Football.

The efforts and the endeavour of the Football initiative of the Trusts has been to structurally develop the Indian Football Ecosystem in collaboration with the concerned stakeholders viz the government, the Football Federation, State Football Associations and clubs, and development organizations at the grassroots level.

The three states covered under the initiative include Manipur, Mizoram, and Meghalaya. A summary of the operations and the outreach is below:

State Partnerships Year of Inception Outreach Achievements
Manipur Grassroots Centres

Partner: Department of Youth Affairs & Sports (YAS, Govt. of Manipur)

 2017 ·       30 Centres spread across 13 districts with 1500 children in the age group 6-14 years.

·       2 Exclusive Girls’ Centres

 ·       3 Girls represented at the U-14 National Camp

·       60 Trainers trained in May 2019 as part of the Coaches Development Initiative
Meghalaya Meghalaya Baby League

Partner: Meghalaya Football Association, All India Football Association (AIFF)

 2018 One of the largest Baby Leagues currently operational in the country.

In the year 2018, 1320 matches were played by 821 children associated with 12 Teams in the age group 4-12 years.

In 2019, 24 teams spread across 4 centres in East Khasi Hills with 1200+ children participated in the League.
Mizoram The Tata Trusts Centre of Excellence (COE)

Partner: Govt. of Mizoram and Mizoram Football Association

 Work Initiated in 2016, COE Operationalised in April 2018 Age Group: U-15.

Active since April 2018, the COE offers the best in class residential football training and education to 30 cadets.

 4 National representations at the Indian National U-16 squad in two years.

2018: TC Vanlalruatfela

2019: Emboklang Nongkhlaw

Isac Zomuanpuia F Lalremtluanga

Polo Initiative:

Manipur is considered to be the birthplace of modern Polo. It also hosts the world’s oldest polo ground — the Mapal Kangjeibung at Imphal. Grassroots Development of Women’s Polo focuses on imparting professional training in Polo to empower women associated with the sport. The three-year program will include coaching, education, scouting and structured training for up to 50 selected women.

The program aims to train women from Manipur in Professional Polo. Manipur has the highest number of women polo players in the world and the project aims to have an impact on the brightest of them. It will not only provide regular coaching, practice sessions and life-skills education but an added element will be the menstrual hygiene management workshops. These workshops will cater to introduce new age sports techniques that help minimise menstrual discomfort.

Currently, the program has enrolled 30 adolescent girls from Manipur to train under 6 Master Trainers lead by a qualified Head Coach.

Achievements:

  •  8 Players participated at the State Level Women Polo Tournament in 2018-19
  • 3 players participated at the State Level Women Polo Tournament in 2019-20
  • 3 players Neelu Rajkumari, Victoria Oinam and Thoudam Tanna Devi represented the state at the 4th Statehood Day International Polo Tournament, 2018-19 (Participating Teams – USA, Canada, Kenya, Argentina, India (IPA) and Manipur)
  • 2 Players and 1 Master Trainer were selected for the Manipur team, 2019-20
  • Two Players Thoudam Tanna Devi (India) and Neelu Rajkumari (USA) represented Manipur in the HPRC International Women’s Arena Polo Cup 2020.