Established in 2018, Monkey Sports is a social enterprise promoting physical and mental well being (SDG 3,4,5) in children through sports. The organization operates in the eastern part of India in states such as Bihar, Orrisa, Chhattisgarh & Jharkhand.
The idea to start the organization came from the founder’s personal experiences while studying at a low-income school in Bihar. Growing up, he was a silent child. But engaging in sports (after school) helped me gain confidence and be a better person socially and emotionally. It has been more than 15 years since he graduated from school, but the schools are still run in the same manner. Children still study in a fearful environment.
While working for the last four years, we have been able to dig deeper and identified challenges to achieve our goal to improve children’s physical and mental well being.
Problem
A key component of children well being is protecting children’s rights. Even though India has laws for children’s rights, it has not taken adequate steps to monitor and implements it. Therefore, it is common to find children getting physically and mentally abused in schools. The belief of punishing children to discipline and improve their lives is ingrained in communities and schools (More commonly found in low-income schools).
Most parents and children are not aware of children’s rights. It happens because of a lack of awareness as children’s rights are not a part of education at school or home.
However, abuse can have long term adverse outcomes for children as anti-social behavior and substance abuse.
Theory of Change
Though many NGOs work in the city to protect children’s rights, they fail to reach a broader audience and schools because of the lack of goal alignment with parents and schools.
Most private schools are focused on academics results, which have led to academic pressure, physical punishment, and mental abuse.
By promising educational outcomes through protecting children’s rights, we want to meet the school half ways. Research conducted by the Wested has shown that creating a) high levels of caring relationship b) high expectations at school. c) Opportunities for participation and contribution can help improve children’s academic outcomes (while ensuring child rights are protected).
Action Plan
Through different interventions (sports sessions, workshops, and intervention) , improve school environments where children feel safe, can voice their opinion and show better social and emotional behavior
Building SEL in Children – Conduct regular sport sessions for children to build social emotional skills. Through experiential learning, children reflect on difficult situations in their daily lives and how to deal with them effectively.
Also, helping children to transition from childhood to adolescence which can be difficult when the adults do not engage them in dialogue and talk about different issues.
Teachers better manage their emotions – Many studies show that teachers in government schools have been feeling anxious, lonely, stressed and lost because of lack of support by administration, work/life balance, a lack of autonomy and decision-making power.
Through workshops, we teach different strategies to teachers so that they can better manage their emotions and can understand the emotions of children so that children can feel safe at school.
Intervention for parents/communities – Regularly interact with parents and encourage them to be concerned about children’s education. Involve parents in school committees and get them actively involved in school processes.
Provide parenting tips to engage with children in dialogue and to keep the community spaces safe and stimulating for children.