Young girls employed at football club set example for women folk in rural hinterland

Tribune India

The mother of 22-year-old Harpreet (one of the three sisters belonging to a peasant family at the Bir Bansian village) was divorced by her father as she could not give birth to a son.

Harpreet, whose education was stopped after Class XII as neither of her parents could afford it nor they wanted her to study, is now charting a success story at the Rurka Kalan village.

Harpreet is among the 40 young girls employed at the Youth Football Club (YFC), Rurka Kalan, who have become the poster girls for women empowerment in the hitherto conservative rural hinterland of the region.

The village girls employed with the club, which comprises of foreign-returned educators, footballers, activists and hygiene enthusiasts, have set an example ushering in a movement for the women folk of their respective villages to step out of their houses and lead the change.

Starting off as a football club, the YFC now runs educational and exchange programmes across schools and countries with its motley army of women staff ushering in a sea change in villages.

Thanks to them, the villages, the playgrounds of which barred women from entering them till five years ago, has now ample chirpy women coaching and teaching in shorts and chic jerseys. The girls, who spread awareness on issues ranging from sports education to menstrual hygiene, also plan to celebrate International Women’s Day with panache on March 8. A cake-cutting ceremony followed by an awareness programme has been the ritual for many years.

Primarily working as project managers, training and marketing officers and youth mentors, the girls work for 30 schools spread across Rurka Kalan and neighbouring villages running the YFC’s ‘various modules, including ‘Goals for Girls’ and sports development. Many of them have already been to Japan, Russia, France, Germany and some having charmed their entire village with their recent TV appearance for the FIFA World Cup 2018.

Baljinder Kaur, who was part of the team which went to Russia in 2018, says, “My parents were initially sceptical about letting me work or allowing me to go out of the house. I was supposed to get married at 23 and confined to home but the YFC has changed things. Neighbours still murmur that I carry a purse or wear jeans but ever since my parents saw me on TV they have been on cloud nine.” Ravina (26), Navjot (24), Sonia, Pallavi and Lovepreet brought similar changes in their families and villages.

Jaspreet (28), who is among the earliest youth mentors of the village and a Rurka Kalan resident who has been to Japan, Germany, France, Russia, Nepal and Myanmar, said she would also be visiting the 2022 FIFA World Cup at Qatar. She said: “It is liberating to come from conservative families and be able to walk freely, come home late and be taken seriously. People who earlier laughed now want their girls to be like us.”

Gurmangal Dass, who started the club 18 years ago, has been the agent of a huge transformation.

He said: “Over 60 per cent of our staff comprises women and about 2,000 girls in and out of schools are engaged in various programmes being run by us. Five years ago, even the football teams did not have any girls and now, we have three separate teams for various age categories.”