Hockey for the Underprivileged: Giving Orphans a Chance

An academy in Bengaluru is trying to teach hockey to orphans, and inculcate a few life lessons as well.

In the mornings as one walks into Maria Niketan School in Cooke Town, Bengaluru, the voices of excited children intermingling with loud music fills the air at a school ground.

The voices are of students of the Jude Felix Hockey Academy, a volunteer-based organization, which conducts hockey training for under-privileged children.

The initiative was started by Jude Felix, former captain of the Indian hockey team, with the help of Shanmugham P, former international and state hockey player and the academy has been coaching children from the St. Mary’s Orphanage in the city since 2009.

There was a need for an academy like this as there were no private hockey training institutes in Bengaluru. Children could learn hockey only if their school provided the coaching,
–Shanmugham P, academy founder

The academy is run on donations and the children are trained free of cost. These donations come in the form of cash or equipment from friends and parents.

The academy has grown over the years from training 35 children in 2009 to 235 children at present. Of these, 175 children come from St. Mary’s Orphanage.

Apart from hockey coaching, the academy also works towards inculcating life skills in these children. These kids lack the right guidance in their life and often end up taking wrong decisions. We try to give them that guidance here.
–Shanmugham P, academy founder

It is important for a child to balance his extracurricular activities with education and keeping that in mind the academy tries to make sports a reason for the students to complete their education.

As a rule they allow the children to play only as long as they continue schooling. John Bosco, who now plays for the Calcutta Senior League, was a school dropout. On the insistence of his coaches he went back to school and today he has completed his pre-university exam.

In tune with their mission of holistic learning, they have aimed to strike a balance between outside children and the orphanage children, so that both can learn from each other’s experiences.

They believe that these lessons from the sports field will transfer into all spheres of the children’s lives.

To ensure complete physical growth of the students, they are also provided nutrition on the grounds.

Speaking on how to improve the hockey scene in India Shanmugham stresses on the importance of focusing on kids as he believes that only if a child is trained for 10- 15 years can he become a world class player.

Jude Felix adds, “Government could help by providing more pitches to train and by creating more jobs for hockey players.”