Lessons in empathy from the streets during the pandemic

Every morning, as the sun sneaks out of the horizon, a team of adolescents can be seen emerging from their ‘galis’ in their strapping yellow uniforms and gear bags. They head out towards the field - their sacred, shared space - where both boys and girls play a sport that they earlier knew nothing about.

Initiated by Saif Ullah Khan and Yusra Khan from the organisation Yellow Streets, these youngsters were introduced to the game of Rugby with the goal of utilising their potential to transform their lives, which are otherwise at risk as they occupy precarious margins of their respective local social worlds. Through Rugby, Saif and Yusra taught them various life skills and provided a window to improve their lives and make a brighter future. As a player himself, Saif knew the transformative powers of Rugby, having fought personal battles to deal with anger and frustration through the game.

These youngsters belong to families who found it difficult to secure livelihoods. Their parents are construction workers, daily wage labourers, beggars, correction house inmates. Some of the youngsters were child labourers, school dropouts and slums dwellers in a neighbourhood of South Delhi. Never before had these individuals seen a sports field let alone know about Rugby. Their lives are fraught with everyday violence, substance abuse and poverty. For the girls, like their mothers, almost all of them had never been allowed to step out of the boundary of the house, let alone play a sport that is largely dominated by men.

Introducing the sport to these kids was a challenge for Saif and Yusra. They built trust over time with the community. However, with Saif and Yusra’s passion and discipline, the community was not far away from being convinced about sending their kids out to play. As the day-to-day play progressed, they all gradually learnt how to be a part of a team, respect each other, channelise their hardships and share their dreams with one another.

Taking To The Streets

The pandemic not only sirened off a medical emergency, but also rendered these families insecure financially. Most of the families lost their means of securing an income in order to keep their families safe. The game sessions also stopped. Despite this, the kids felt an itch to do something for the community, in order to bridge the gaps imposed by the pandemic to secure day-to-day safety and food. They were restless. They were ready. The time had come to take the game from the field to the galis. So what if the game had come to a halt? For them, they knew that with teamwork, as they had learnt on the field, could help them orchestrate something more than a game in a pandemic-hit present. As Saif recollects: “These children could have chosen to stay home and continue with their online classes. Yet, when it was the need of the hour, they came out and gave back to the society through their relief efforts; just like the game has taught them.”

Coming Together : Reaching The Try Line As One

Making the relief work happen went beyond Yellow Street’s players. They built camaraderie with other groups and individuals for the relief work in Delhi. They received support from Goonj, Jan Sahas, Nasscom Foundation, Seeds India, Marham, Project Livelihood, Give India, Sang and Each one Feed one. Many families were even connected with local councillors, SDMs and other government representatives, to avail relief from alternative sources.

“Initially there were only 23 volunteers”, states Yusra. “They handled packaging and distribution. But with time, demands grew. Collaboration with other stakeholders became necessary. At that time, Rajesh, our mentor and a professional working in the space of youth leadership, contacted us and shared his ideas of scaling up the relief work. Excited, we grabbed this opportunity. Our volunteer group expanded from 23 to 32 members with 12 core group members steering the relief work. The team was called Covid 19 response team. With such a vast team, organizing and strategizing was crucial.” Another partner, Aumtara Spiritual Hub, offered Yellow Streets their spacious office space for packaging, delivering and loading relief material. This allowed them to reach out to more individuals.

There Is No ‘I’ In Teamwork

Rugby taught these kids that everyone was welcome - from diverse backgrounds, shapes, sizes, skills, temperaments and identities. The relief work benefited a lot from the philosophical groundings in the game. It incorporated everyone along with their limitations. While some worked from home by supporting back-end management and social media, others were part of packing and distributing relief kits. Volunteers whose homes were farther away, who could not commute on a daily basis, became the point of contact and leaders of their neighbourhoods to facilitate relief work.

The game teaches one to break through barriers of identity, caste, class and religion. Shashi Bhaskar, 14, says Rugby has made him overcome his prejudices. “Earlier, I would wonder how Muslims or lower castes would eat. How do they live? After playing with them, I realised we’re more than our differences; we’re sportspersons and friends,” he says. Rajesh shares, “ We refused to entertain requests which asked us to deliver ration only to people from a particular religion.”

Like the ‘Wolfpack’(as they call themselves), they learned to eat, sit, cry, laugh and play with those different to them. Relief work demanded that each person, no matter which community they hail from; is deserving, must be respected and treated equally.

Living The Values Of Rugby

Whether, on or off the field, the first step is to build successful players who imbibe the core values of the game: Integrity, solidarity, respect and discipline. During the relief work, the community leaders demonstrated integrity by preparing the relief packets without compromising on the quality and quantity. Even the vendors sold the raw materials at market price without inflating prices. During relief work, Rugby’s discipline allowed the team to cater to an overwhelming number of requests in a short span of time. Smaller teams were created and assigned roles for better functioning. Families were identified, emergency cases were relayed back to community members. Social media helped a great deal to generate funds. Data was tracked efficiently. The number of beneficiaries reached were verified by ‘points of contact’ within the communities. Much like the GPS trackers in Rugby that store data and decode fitness and injury levels, mapping data in a systematic method was key for the team to ensure relief reached everyone who deserved it.

Tackling The Risk

Just like Rugby, wherein injuries are common, the inability to run relief work smoothly and the sight of endless hungry mouths to feed, can break one’s spirit. Yusra states,“There have been times when the relief kits have not reached those who needed it the most. This festered a lot of anger and resentment in their minds as they were desperately waiting for their relief kits.”

Danish, an 18 year old adolescent, states that the physical and mental training during their Rugby sessions helped them to handle high level of stress while they worked tirelessly to load and unload heavy rations, update and verify beneficiary lists with the help of community leaders and to calm anxious families down and ensure that no one was left behind. For the team it meant going back to the drawing board, to gather missing information of how many people were men and women, migrants and what their source of income was. Ensuring every single family and individual’s needs were recorded and catered to, also reduced conflict within the community.

Passing The Ball Back To Community Leaders

The journey into relief has allowed these young adolescents to build relationships with other inspiring individuals within the relief landscape in Delhi. One of the first people to reach out to the team was a girl from North-East Delhi whose home had burned down during the North East Delhi pogrom in February 2020. Having been involved in relief work herself, she as a local empath, took up the role of a leader to take care of her own community. Many young locals like her, played a critical role in going door to door, meeting every family and creating a list of beneficiaries - ensuring no family got left behind. “Their courage to step in day after day without being exhausted and ensuring no one goes hungry is inspiring. We could do all this work only because of them ”, says Rajesh from ComMutiny- The Youth Collective.

Yellow Streets believes in letting their adolescent leaders struggle, experience failure and come up with their own solutions that are locally feasible. These youth by virtue of having grown up in the community are best placed to identify local issues and galvanise change. Along with Sports, they have focused on building entrepreneurial skill, enabling them to start their own initiatives. By learning to manage roles during the relief work - treasurer, conflict manager, president and PR manager - they gained the confidence and life skills to take charge of their community. They have already started many community action projects - like the ‘Nutrition Food Plan for Players’ to provide nutrition to players who don’t make it through professional selections because of lack of proper diet and homelessness.

Taking Lessons From The Streets back to The Field

The Covid 19 response team provided relief and sanitary kits to more than 5000 families across 11 districts in Delhi and bordering regions - Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. These kits sustained families for a month, providing necessary relief which in turn allowed the families to use their savings for other important things. While the relief work ended in May, other learnings and friendships from the field were carried back.

Sharing their experiences, the young community leaders of Yellow Streets stated: “ We learnt how to create lists, verify them and how to reassure hungry and anxious people awaiting ration deliveries. We are proud of ourselves. We received abundant love, warmth and blessings from our communities. This has been extremely fulfilling for us.”

These adolescents, occupying the margins of the society (rag-pickers, beggars, laborers, school drop outs) and once seen as anti-social elements of their community, began to be recognised as leaders - gaining the respect and goodwill of others. They changed the narratives of their own stories. The game of Rugby went beyond the field into other areas of their lives. As an adolescent girl Himani states, “One only needs to step into someone else’s shoes to empathise with them. Rugby teaches me not to judge anyone. I want to help as many girls step out of their homes and be independent.”

The head of training of Magic Bus, an organisation that works to empower young people and children through life skills and psycho-social interventions, Dr. Subhomoy Bhaduri believes that Sports can change lives and livelihoods. He says, “In India, sports is either seen as competition or as leisure. Sports - not the glamorous world of medals, which the world binges on - but a simpler and more humble side, has the ability to build bridges and catalyse change within a community.”

When Sports is used to build a connection between what happens on the field to the pivotal experiences in one’s life - the magic begins. Like the slums of New Delhi, it has enabled rehabilitation of marginalized youth. Rugby became a road map for their life ahead. Not only did the game help them channelise their aggression constructively but also made them resilient and rediscover themselves. They are now hell bent on living their best lives, against all odds.

We would like to thank the following individuals and organisations for inspiring us with their powerful experiences and in building this story. If you’d like to know more or support their work, please click on the links below.

Yusra Khan and Saif Ullah Khan, Founders, Yellow Streets and Covid-19 Volunteer Response

Danish and Himani, Youth leaders, Yellow Streets and Covid-19 Volunteer Response

Rajesh Nandan Singh Meher, ComMutiny- The Youth Collective and Covid-19 Volunteer Response

Dr. Subhomoy Bhaduri, Magic Bus

Written by Anjani Grover, Nida Ansari and Pooja Dhingra

Illustrated by Adira Andlay, Animated by Annie Hazarika

Art Direction by Pooja Dhingra

From Rugby to Relief