Annual Report 2010-2011

Annual Report 2010-2011

Contents 01 Preface 02 The Magic Bus Programme 04 Partnerships 05 The Mumbai Programme 06 The National Programme 07 Programme Development 08 The Magic Bus Centre for Learning and Development 09 Financial Information 10 Contact addresses

Cover photo courtesy: Alex Rossi

Preface W e ha ve ha d a pa rt ic ula rly g ood y ea r .

Ment ors like Ga urang (i n t he pict ure on your lef t) ha ve s how n the w ay fo r Ma g ic Bus ’ t en y ea r old curr ic ulum go nat iona l.

They ha ve s how n us tha t  Posit ive r ole models ca n be g row n from w ithin a N eig hbour hood: non- profi ts do not need to pa ratr oop s ta f f member s t o c rea te s ust a ina ble s tr uct ures  once the M ag ic Bus pr ogr am me ta k es of f, children t hems elv es help g row the initiat iv e with t heir na tur al energ y, t alent a nd belief  lear ning a nd sk ill-building opport unit ies t o gr ow s elf- est eem a nd c onfidenc e t hat is nec ess a ry f or childr en’s ment a l healt h a re ea sily as s im ila ted int o ex is t ing s oc ia l init iat iv es  s por t t raining a nd tea m exper iences helps to develop eff ect iv e s oci al and co m munica tion s kills , build positive rela tionships, m a ke fr iends a nd fi nd s oci al suppor t  fo r m entors lik e Ga urang , op por tunities t o ex pres s t heir needs, inter est s a nd exerc is e lea dership on the spor ts fi eld a nd in their co mm unit ies ar e an a dded benefi t; it helps ret a in their int eres t in t he progr a mme. G aur ang now runs his own s por fo r dev elopment N GO!  life s kills t ha t inc rea s e em ploy abilit y and c hanc es of suc ces sf ully t ransit ioning int o t he la bour ma rk et a re perha ps t he most co mpelling r eas on to beco me a

Me nto r @ Magic Bus I n ot her wor ds, w e hav e pr oof t ha t our innov at ion ac t ua lly wor ks .

This y ear , Ma g ic Bus ha s g row n fr om a loca l, Mum bai-ba s ed initiat ive to a nat iona l pres ence. Progr a mm es ha ve s ucc ess fully been s et up dis tr ic t off ices in Andhr a Prades h; Ma har a sht ra and D elhi. Deliv ery is in t he ha nds of 99 1 tr ained v olunt eers w ho Ma gic Bus c alls C om munity S port s Coa ches .

Tw o k ey pa rt nerships t ook sha pe this yea r w it h the Cent ral Gover nment . The Pa ncha ya t i Yuv a Kr ida Ev am Khel Abhiya n (PYKK A) W ill us e M ag ic Bu’s ex pert is e to tr a in it ’s st af f mem bers. The N a t ional Play fi elds Ass oci a tion of I ndia will use Ma g ic Bus as on-g round adv oc a tes t o cr ea t e m or e pla yf ields.

I t is a y ear of beg innings . I c an sa y w it h hope t hat our f ir st go a l of Rea ching a m illion childr en is not s o f ar aw a y.

Ma t thew Spa ci e, MBE F ounder a nd CEO Ma g ic Bus 3 1s t Ma rc h 20 1 1

Cover photo courtesy: Alex Rossi

Photo Courtesy: Yu Murayama

The plastic cone is one of the 15 multi-tasking tools that power a Magic Bus session. It serves as a marker, a starting line, a toy, a goalpost.

The Magic Bus Programme Magic Bus runs five kinds of initiatives.

The Graduation programme works with three age groups in a single session designed to meet awareness, growth and development needs. For better programme design, we call the 7-9 year olds the Voyager group, and the inputs for this group are geared towards self awareness. The slightly older group - 10-14 year olds - are called Challengers and this part of the programme is oriented towards contextualising the self in the immediate environemnt and learning the first lessons of resilience. The final age group, who we call Voyagers, work on the need to develop meaningful choice for children whoa re 15 years of age or older.

Many at-risk children are unable to reach the Magic Bus programme owing to the difficult circumstances they live in. As child labourers, domestic workers or special abilities children, this ‘invisible’ group has little or no access to the outside world. For this group, Magic Bus runs an Adventurer programme that takes children who are not part of the Magic Bus programme on an outdoor camp for a day. The Adventurer programme runs in Mumbai only.

To run this initaitive, Magic Bus trains an extensive network of community-level mentors, who we call Community Sports Coaches.

This group is given training inputs, hand held, and monitored by staff members. This approach frees up valuable organisational time and resources as all CSCs work as volunteers. Volunteering at Magic Bus as coaches helps volunteers develop much-needed soft skills such as leadership and conflict management, valued competencies for enhancing employability.

The Peer Leader programme is run for children who had been through eight years of the Magic Bus curriculum. Peer Leaders are trained to work directly in communities or in the Sports field to broaden the scope and reach of the MagicBus programme, even as they develop their own confidence and self-esteem levels. The Peer Leader programme currently runs only in Mumbai.

In Mumbai, the organisation has its own Magic Bus Football Team, a specialised team drawn from children who have gone through the Graduation Programme and shown special promise in football. It provides an opening for children to be part of competetive sport and win awards.

By the age of sixteen or seventeen, future plans rank high on a teenager’s list of priorities. Peer pressure as well as pressures from families are highest at this age. For children who have reached graduation age, magic Bus runs a Connect programme to link young adults to higher education opportunities or careers of their choice.

A Connect Success Story Parvati Pujari, 21, is training to be a football coach. When she is not playing football, Parvati works at Magic Bus as a mentor. She is also completing a Bachelor's degree in Commerce from the Mumbai University.

What makes all this special is that Parvati is from one of Mumbai's 4 million extremely poor families that lives of less than INR 592 (USD 11.9) per person, per month. Her parents were constructions workers in Mumbai, helping build a five star Mall in central Mumbai. After construction got over, they moved into one 8 x 12 feet temporary room which floods every monsoon. “Our living condition is such that we get to see all seasons at close quarters,” laughs Parvati. Parvati's family consists of nine people, making it difficult to make sure everyone gets enough to eat. “We mostly make do with a khichdi,” she says.

What changed for Parvati was her belief in her own power to change her own, and her family's future by making sure she used every opportunity that was available in the system, but not used. Parvati completed school even as her girl friends got married off as children.

While her peers were struggling with premature pregnancies and its attendant morbidity, Parvati was taking activity-and sport-based coaching classes for younger children, joining a job, working on her football course, and travelling abroad to raise funds for Magic Bus. In the eleven years she has spent with Magic Bus, Parvati has shown the way of what is possible even for the very poor to do, to break out of poverty.

The Mumbai City Programme About the programme As old as the organisation.the Mumbai City Programme dates back to 1999, when Magic Bus was founded. Today, the city programme has grown to cover 4 of the city’s major slum settlements: Dharavi, alternately known as Asia’s largest slum, the Bombay Port Trust slums, and those at Jogeshwari in the city’s western suburbs and Mankhurd in the central suburbs. The Mumbai programme runs all five kinds of initiatives that Magic Bus offers, as noted on Page 03.

Highlights - The first batch of children graduated as Voyagers. A small certification ceremony was organised in April 2009 to honour and congratulate our first achievers.

- Inter Zonal Football Championships were held at the Bombay Port Trust Grounds (the location of the picture on the right). On the day of the Finals, 12 teams played against each other. Six winners emeregd in the agebased categories we organise these tournaments in to make sure competition is on an equal footing.

- We held two Sport Days for cihldren from the Explorer age group with 720 cihldren.

- Eight young men from the Magic Bus Football team took part in the Football for Hope tournament in South Africa.

- The Magic Bus Football Team won three matches organised by the Mumbai District Football Association.

One match was declared a draw. Visitors can see the winning cups at the Mumbai office of Magic Bus. - The Magic Bus Football Team also played the Outdoor All-India Football Tournament for the first time, where they reached the quarter-finals held at Pusad, in Maharashtra.

- Peer Leaders have started taking the Magic Bus sessions in two communities from this year. This essentially means that we are now growing a team of local mentors who gain from our training, while we are assured that the programme outreach does not have to depend on how many staff members we have.

- For the third time, we held a Community Open Tournament in Dharavi.

This format brings parents and caregivers together to play for a day and feel for themselves the benefits of sport. More often than not, we have, by the end of day, life-long converts to the cause of children’s development.

The Community Open Tournaments are an attempt at making the surrounding community take ownership of the stories of change cihldren are writing as part of the Magic Bus programme. This year, as many as 30 teams participated in the programme, of which ten were formed of mothers, four of fathers and sixteen of other youth from the communities.

The mother’s team specially generated a lot of excitement as women wound up their saree ends and got into sports shoes for the first time in their lives.

In Mankhurd, the first such community open tournament was held. Twenty one teams participated, of which a whopping 12 were women’s teams, much to everyone’s delight.

What our Partners Say “Initially, my husband and nieghbours talked when I started sending my daughter to the Magic Bus sessions. My husband even said, if you send her there, I will beat up both of you.

Magic Bus came and spoke to him many times. After many such meetings, he agreed. Let them say what they want. I will send her.”

- Vimala, mother of Magic Bus child and Youth Mentor Bombay Port Trust Slums, Mumbai

The National Programme To spread the benefits of the Magic Bus programme, this year saw our expansion into other parts of India. The national programme comes with a mandate of making sure a million children get the direct benefits of the Magic Bus programme by the year 2015. Work started on this by opening the new NOIDA office near Delhi and district offices Medak, Kurnool and Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh, Chandrapur in Maharashtra and in the different parts of Delhi, which is divided into 4 geographical units for better administration.

With the support from 991 community sports coaches,Magic Bus reached as many as 39,619 children this year, a record 12 fold growth that helped validate the resilience and replicability of the model we have nurtured and incubated in Mumbai for the last 12 years.

We have entered into partnerships with various NGOs like World Vision India, Ashadeep Foundation, Association of Revival Tabernacle, Cooperative Outreach of India, Dr. Reddy's foundation, Shaheen Resource centre and Welfare association, and the TGV group in Kurnool. Our partnerships have helped us increase our outreach at relatively little cost and time.

Pratik Kumar, Magic Bus’ COO, presented a paper at a conference held on September 06, 2010. The conference was attended by Secretaries of State and Sports Ministers. Magic Bus got an opportunity to present and share its Sport for Development programme, approach and national expansion plans with the participants. The conference opened several avenues like conducting PYKKA audits at states, training master trainers for PYKKA, training volunteers at Playfields, Play fields' development consultancy and running S4D programmes for various states.

On 14th November 2010, the day celebrated as Children's day across the Nation, we organised children’s rallies at different parts of Delhi to promote a child's right to play. Magic Bus children participated in these rallies along with the staff. The rallies were successful in creating a mass

awareness on Sport for Development concept and also promoted children's right to play.

All this was made possible with support from 240 staff members, who were trained at rigorous training events ranging from 4 days to 75 days. A large majority were also recruited this year.

In a significant achievement, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with the Panchayat Yuva Krida Aur Khel Abhiyan (PYKKA) Mission Directorate Department of Sports, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Govt. of India.

Farzana’s Story Farzana Begum, a 20 year old from Hyderabad lives amongst constant tension between the Muslim and Dalit population in her community.

Although only earning £30 a month and living off leftovers from her step-mother, Farzana spends her free time as a Magic Bus youth mentor, teaching young girls and boys from both communities to respect one another. Dressed in full Burkha, Farzana takes off her head scarf and explains that working with Magic Bus has given her the confidence to say no to an offer of marriage from a 70 year old head teacher of the local school. She explains “After joining Magic Bus, I gained confidence and started facilitating sessions in the community and refused to marry or succumb to pressure.” This attitude is filtered down to the girls and boys she teaches every week - children who have spent their whole lives fitting in and following the crowd. Farzana now hopes to do a post-graduate course and become a lecturer.

Partnerships Most of the expansion was made possible with the help of Magic Bus’ modus operandi of maximising existing initiatives already running in an area, rather than spending resources and time in setting up support from scratch.

This way of working complements, rather than competes with, existing government and non-government projects and programmes, and adds value to others’ work.

This year, we have partnered with the Government of India’s Panchayati Yuva Khel Evam Krida Abhiyan - the PYKKA - a Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports scheme that entails setting up centres of play and development in each of India’s 265000 panchayats (village councils). We have been asked by the Government of India to help set up 5 model PYKKA centres in Maharashtra’s Sangli district and Andhra Pradesh’s Medak district. Besides this, we will also develop and manage a pool of resource persons for Training of Trainer (ToT) programmes and Kridashrees across States implementing the scheme.

Besides this, we also partner the National Play Fields Association of India (NPFAI). We help advocate their cause across their stakeholders and are also facilitating the development of their processes and mandates.

Once a play field gets registered under the NPFAI, Magic Bus conducts sessions on sport for development with children at those spaces. We are also drawing up a communication strategy for the promotion of the NPFAI. Pratik Kumar, our COO, presented a paper at the State Sports Minister’s Secretary Conference on 6 September 2010, a portal that gave us the opportunity to present the Magic Bus innovation to policy makers and implementors across the Government’s Sports Departments. Conversations at this space opened up several avenues for us, including possibilities of working in partnerships with the PYKKA. We partnered with 11 residential schools run by the Maharashtra wing of the Integrated Tribal Development Association, Government of India. This year, our partnership with the Ashramalays - as these schools are called - enabled us to reach 1925 children from the Ballarpur, Korpana, Mool and Chandrapur blocks of the Chandrapur district.

What People Said “The children here love taking part in sports and learning new games. It also brings the community together; I have been hearing about it..So it is more than just about sports and the children: it seems to involve the whole community: the parents, which is really good and maybe leaves us with some lessons to learn to be used back in Scotland.”

- Shona Robinson Minister for Sports and Public Health, Scotland, United Kingdom.

“Change is no child’s play. But for these children, nothing impossible.”

- Priyanka Gupta, Reporter, as reported on CNN IBN. The channel covered the Magic Bus rally at Kaura village on occasion of children’s day - 14 November.

Magic Bus’ children spoke to every out of school child they spotted, asking questions on reasons for not attending school and offering solutions. Watch the clip on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5E3et7Bv0U

Programme Development The Magic Bus Sport for Development curriculum, developed over twelve years of experiential learning, followed a learning cycle that was based on planning, applying, reviewing and course-correction. Such a method allowed us the opportunity to measure ongoing process and outcomes.

The curriculum has been tried and tested among children from different backgrounds and needs, ranging from those living on streets, cihldren in conflict with law, trafficked children and those living in institutions.

Highlights from the year A special training of trainers programme has been developed to help us enable others in delivering and monitoring the programme and its benefits.

A facilitator’s manual was developed this year covering: - the design and delivery of the sport for development programme - including age-specific and needs-based modules for children in the Explorer age group of 7-9 years and the Challenger age group of 9-14 years.

A similar training of trainers manual was also developed to guide trainers who will work as resource persons on sport for development. The manual covers the ways in which sport can be used as a development tool .

In September 2010, Magic Bus signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Lakshmibai National University of Physical Education (LNUPE) to jointly develop sport for development as a concept. The LNUPE runs teacher training courses for Physical education teachers, and hence the work will inform their college curriculum.

The first sport for development summit, which we named Maidan (featured on the national channel Doordarshan - in the pic on the right) , was held in the year. The summit is meant to grow as a platform for practitioners and policymakers to come together and share ideas and experiences.

In all, we conducted 800 training programmes in the year, of which 464 were for th Panchayati Yuva Krida Evam Khel Abhiyan.

At the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) football training clinic, we held a training on the ten steps of good coaching, including on-ground training.

Magic Bus staff members, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) school teachers, and staff from other NGOs took part in the training.

Another training at the Nehru Yuva Kendra in Pune helped us reach 100 young people from all across India. In keeping with the Nehru Yuva Kendra’s programme objectives, we helped show how sports could be used as a tool for national integration.

Magic Bus Learning and Development Centre Set on 25 lush acres in Karjat, an hour’s drive from Mumbai, India’s bustling financial capital, the Magic Bus Centre for Learning and Development is one of India’s first world-class centers for outdoors and experiential learning.

The Centre was set up with three objectives: - to offer the highest quality of outdoor development learning to children and young adults - to offer a safe and secure environment for children to learn and play - to offer a stimulating environment for trainers to deliver learning programmes The Centre has India’s first international standard challenge course, built by the Adventure Ropes Company Limited, UK. This includes a high ropes course, an artificial rock climbing tower with a rappeling face and a breathtakingly long zipline.

It has the capacity to offer programmes for 15,000 people in a year, with a residential capacity for about 100 people per day.

The Centre offers needs-based residential programmes for private schools and corporate programmes.

Highlights 2312 cihldren from the Magic Bus-run Mumbai programmes came to the Centre on day trips, overnight trips, camps and expeditions.

1816 cihldren completed the Adventurer programme at the Centre, as part of day trips or camps.

Over 700 children from private schools attended outdoor camps at the Centre, including the Felsted School, UK, River Dale School, Mercedes Benz School, Jungle Lore School, ASB Primary School, EFIB School, SJBCN School and Garodia School.

Corporate Houses such as the Indo German Chamber of Commerce, Adidas also held their training and development programme at the centre, facilitated

by Magic Bus. Six private schools from Mumbai, Delhi and Pune took part in the Pastch football tournament in a unique developmental framework. Two magic Bus teams also participated.

The Centre took a step forward in ensuring safety for all those attending by getting all twelve of its staff facilitators certified by the European Ropes Courses Association.

In all, the Magic Bus Learning and Development Centre hosted adventure, sports and development programmes for 5000 children and adults in the year.

Key Events

Strategic Partners

1100 runners ran the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon for us this year.

Four Corporate Houses ran in support of Magic Bus - Bloomberg, BCP Advisors, DHL and Cleartrip.

A few key funders have helped Magic Bus in ways that went beyond the normal funding relationship. Magic Bus would like to acknowledge their contribution to our growth and learning by identifying them as our strategic partners.

53 villages got supporters at the Muscat Gala held this year.

We will work closely with all the strategic partners to create a plan that ensures that the alliance is fully leveraged.

Our work in Andhra Pradesh was featured on the regional news channel ABN Andhrajyoti. Their 5 minutes story on the right to play and sport for development was telecast on 8th January 2011.

We have four strategic partners.

Sony TV aired a new Magic Bus commercial shot with Indian superstar Ranbir Kapoor. The ad was aired in the South East Asian market for a period of 6 months, helping us reach audiences we would never have access to otherwise.

Premier League The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is currently sponsored by Barclays Bank and therefore officially known as the Barclays Premier League.

This year, Jeremy Hunt, British Secretary of State of Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport announced the continuation of Premier League’s partnership with Magic Bus for the next three years. Read about Premier League’s support on: www.premierleague.com/en-gb/creating-chances/2011-12/magic-bus.html Australian Sports Outreach Programme (ASOP) The ASOP provides much needed resources and expertise to countries and programmes that do not receive large funds from elsewhere, based on commonly shared values. The Programme committed to a strategic partnership with Magic Bus for a period of five years, starting 2010, as support in training community sports coaches in our programme delivery across the country.

Read more on www.dfat.gov.au/geo/spacific/asop/index.html Nike Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. It is the world's leading supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment. Nike committed to a three year partnership to support our Training and Monitoring Officers.

To know more, visit www.nike.com

Popular film personality Ranbir Kapoor poses with our crew at the video shoot of the Magic Bus corporate film Watch the video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilFTeOf5iLQ

Financial Information

Childlink India Foundation, has been registered as Magic Bus India Foundation, a non-profit company under Section 25 of the Companies Act in 2011.

Magic Bus India Head Quarters Post: Room 5, II Floor, A Wing, Todi Estate, Sunmills Compound, Lower Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra Pin - 400013 India Tel: +91 22 4333 9393 Magic Bus National Programme Head Quarters Post: C2/105, Sector 36, NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh 201301 India Tel: +91 120 4787400 Magic Bus Centre for Learning & Development (The Centre) Post: Village Aasrewadi at Post Chowk, Taluka Khalapur, District Raigad, Maharashtra 410206 India Tel: +91 219 232550 Magic Bus UK Post: Ground Floor, 32-36, Loman Street London SE10EH UK Tel: +44 0207 922 7717 Email: infouk@magicbusindia.org Magic Bus eV Germany Post: C/o BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt Hanauer Str 46, 80992 M端nchen Tel: +49 0 89 38227504 Fax: +49 0 32121040464 Magic Bus USA Post: 848 Folsom Street, Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94107 Tel: +1 415 963 3525 Fax: +1 415 963 3520

Photo Courtesy: Alex Rossi