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Camera: Ribhu Chatterjee Video Editor: Harpal Rawat
In every nook and lane of Noida's Gejha village, lives a basketball player. Not cricket, not football, but basketball! Kids from low income families are able to change their lives by learning to play basketball. And that's the reason why Gejha is now famously called the 'basketball wala gaon.'
Basketball player Pradyut Voleti is the brains behind this initiative. He formed Dribble Academy Foundation, a non-profit in 2015 to take basketball to streets and villages of India and make it accessible for everyone.
Pradyut started his mission from Gejha in 2016 with only five kids, half a court, and two bamboo sticks in the village's local NEM school. Today, DAF has trained over 3,000 children across eight Indian villages.
Around 600 kids from Gejha village come to train in several batches from 3 to 8 pm every day.
Introducing the game and to generate the need for it was the main issue in the beginning as the villages were hesitant to send their kids to play. After a lot of persuasion and encouragement, DAF managed to get over 150 kids to play basketball.
These kids come from unprivileged backgrounds; their parents work hard doing meagre jobs to earn a living for the family. But the kids work hard, determined to achieve the best that they can. And, that is what inspires the coaches at the academy to do more for them.
Awareness spread about Dribble Academy only when the students went to the next level with the game.
Children from the academy started to play in tournaments in and outside Delhi, they earned scholarships in schools and colleges. Two boys from Gejha went on to represent India at the NBA world championship.
Urmila Kajal Singh was the first girl to join the basketball academy in Gejha in 2016. Today, she is working as a coach at the academy and trains around 200 kids.
Through basketball, Sonali got a scholarship in one of Noida's top schools.
Dribble Academy also tries to bridge the gap between the education given in private schools and government schools. Apart from teaching discipline and general life skills, the academy has its own digital literacy centre.
The academy focuses on education, mental health, and even the financial difficulties of the kids. Every kid at the court wears a jersey, which makes them equal, makes them a unit.
Dribble Academy Foundation aims to reach 100 villages and 1,00,000 children by 2030.
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