Education Access
After school clubs that tie sport to schoolwork
Aabel Renoy wants to build a nonprofit offering athletic and academic support to young people from lower-income communities across India, through after school clubs that combine tutoring and sport.
"Many young kids in India have promising potential in both sports and in academics," Aabel Renoy says. For many of them, daily responsibilities come before personal dreams and interests. "Helping support their families often takes priority over training, studying or developing their talents." Many young people in lower-income communities, he says, still lack access to "consistent coaching, mentorship and structured support".
"I believe opportunity should not be determined by a person's financial situation," he says. India, in his account, has an enormous amount of talent that remains undeveloped.
“Consistency is key to achieving your goals.”
Aabel Renoy
"My proposed solution is to create after school clubs that combine tutoring and sports," he says. "Students would receive academic support and their effort and improvement in school would be connected to their participation in sports programs."
He says plainly where the project currently stands. "At the moment, I only have a skeletal framework of the project, and I am still learning how to turn the vision into a reality."
The goal is to give young people the chance to develop academically as well as athletically, while building lifelong skills that hold up inside and outside sport. Around the clubs he hopes to build "a network of coaches, educators and supporters".
He is starting with one state, Kerala, in southern India. "I plan to start small in Kerala, learn from the community and grow the initiative responsibly over time," he says.