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I thought that for my next posts I would highlight a couple of the major stories in the Nagpur Times this week. The biggest news shock for many in the world this past week was probably the election of Donald Trump to be the next President of the United States of America. However, here in India a bigger surprise was the announcement of the immediate withdrawal from circulation of 500 (roughly equal to £5) and 1000 Rupee notes overnight on Tuesday and the introduction of new 500 and 2000 Rupee notes as replacement. The Government’s intention is to remove so called "black money" – money which has been earned legally or through corrupt or illegal activities and on which no tax has been paid – from the economy, with a view to tackling the funding of terrorism and other subversive activities. The World Bank estimated that the black economy was worth 23.2% of India’s total economy in 2007. Notwithstanding what seems a good aim, the majority of people in India carry out their daily business in cash and so the change is having a big impact on day to day life – the banknotes that have been withdrawn represented 86% of the cash in circulation. Reports suggest that long withheld taxes have finally been paid (using stashed old notes before they have been withdrawn); India’s jewellers have been working overtime to help people convert their old money into gold. Housewives who may have saved up a secret stash of cash for a rainy day without their husband’s knowledge have suddenly had to declare their savings. Those who are paid in cash on a daily basis may not get paid as there is not enough change in smaller notes to go round. It is coming up to wedding season in India and there are a lot of expenses to meet for which cash is usually used. There are many banks in Indian cities but those living in the villages are unlikely to have immediate access to a bank to deposit or exchange old notes – it is reported that more than 300 million people do not have any Government registration documents and more than half the population still do not have a bank account - so there could be a particularly negative impact for those who are on the margins of society. There is quite a lot of chaos and although the idea of clamping down on the black economy seems popular, there may be a risk that the policy makes the Government less popular rather than more popular if the administration of the change doesn’t start to improve. I’ve not been immune to the changes as I got paid some of my expenses in cash (bundles of the old 500 Rs notes) and there were, initially at least, quite severe restrictions on how much could be exchanged and rumours that you would only get back 80% of the value of the old notes in the new. Colleagues are helping me sort things out – hopefully in the next few days I should have everything changed over. There was great excitement amongst the staff when Nikhat Madam returned from the bank with some of the first new 2,000 Rs notes for me – pictured above! My next concern will be to start changing some of the new notes back to sterling or dollars as I’m finding that I’m not spending a lot whilst I’m here and the rupee is a soft currency and can’t be exchanged in the U.K. Providentially, I happened to listen to a recorded sermon on Luke 12: 13-21 (the Parable of the Rich Fool) yesterday which brought a timely reminder of the right perspective to have on the situation!
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For this blog post, I thought you may be interested to learn more about Slum Soccer (slumsoccer.org) – how it developed and what its main programmes are today. There are a couple of really interesting short pieces of film to watch too – the first is a general piece on Slum Soccer; the other tells you more about the impact of one particular programme in a community near Nagpur. Slum Soccer was founded by Mr Vijay Barse, a sports professor in 2001. It began when he noticed two street children kicking a broken bucket around in the rain. The sheer enjoyment they found in such a simple game highlighted the benefit of sports and led Mr Barse to gift a football to a few of the slums in the local area. A few weeks later, he returned to arrange an informal tournament and things developed from there. Slum Soccer use football to encourage community inclusion and overcome barriers facing the marginalised populations of India. The homeless, slum and village communities of India face a variety of complex issues, such as sexual and domestic abuse, unemployment, alcoholism, drug usage, malnutrition, mental health issues and disengagement from the education sector. They believe that sport and football offer a set of transferable skills for social development, through team building, acceptance and discipline. They provide positive role models and a place to develop and have enjoyment. In 2002, they introduced football coaching to increase the amount of contact time with the kids, asked by the parents who were happy that their children had a safe activity to do which they enjoyed. In 2006, they introduced social programmes, using football as a tool for education. They teach life skills, including health, hygiene and sanitation, gender equality, sexual health and financial skills. In 2010, they introduced female only teams with specific life skills topics to improve female empowerment. They also run workshops for parents to help in their children’s development and in financial skills to help them support their families. To return to the core of what they do, they then established a football training academy in Nagpur and now coach ‘rising stars’ from across India. There are main offices in Nagpur and Chennai, and they operate in nine cities in India. There are four core programmes, funded mainly by international donors: A) Health camps – providing life skills training to marginalised communities and promoting healthy living and fitness B) Youth leaders – training young people to become football coaches C) Rising stars – developing football talent at the academy D) Edu-kick – working with local schools to use football to teach curriculum subjects In addition they work with many other partners and donors, running individual community engagement projects. Young people from Slum Soccer have attended the Homeless World Cup (www.homelessworldcup.org) in various cities across the world, broadening their horizons by travelling to new places and meeting people from other cultures. So what does a typical day working with Slum Soccer look like? The day starts about 8am with breakfast at the guest house – typically bread or sweet toast with jam, occasionally an omelette, tea and some fruit – bananas or Nagpur oranges. Usually, Consti, the German volunteer who is working with Slum Soccer for six months as part of a gap year comes up to the house to join me. The Slum Soccer office hours are nominally 10am to 5pm Monday to Saturday, but in reality it tends to be later when things get going and can be earlier when everyone heads to deliver coaching sessions or home. So there's a bit of free time after breakfast before heading to the office. It's nice to be able to throw open the doors to the balcony of my bedroom and look over the fields towards Nagpur as the heat of the day begins to pick up once again. It's still routinely about 32 degrees Celsius, dropping to about 16 degrees overnight! People then gradually arrive on a succession of motorbikes and scooters – the office manager Nikhat-Madam, senior coaches such as Sajid, Prasanna and Pankaj and junior coaches including Annikesh and Himanshu. Some staff like Homkant, the Slum Soccer head coach are currently living on site and there's also the younger guys who cheerfully help out around the site such as Shubham, Bunty and Bardel. There was great sadness at the end of this week when Mankesh, another of the younger guys and considered to be part of the family was fatally injured in a road accident near to the site – a horrible reminder about the dangers of travelling on the roads here. My key contacts Abhijeet, the CEO and his wife Mahima are usually on-site between 11am and 4pm, childcare arrangements allowing. Although those who know me will know that I'm not averse to a later start, it does mean that there has been quite a lot of less productive time. AfID partners are asked to commit to their key staff being available for a minimum of four hours a day – this is clearly not working out here and will reduce the progress which I’m able to make, though I am the first AfID volunteer they have had so there is a sense that we are all feeling our way along. Most of this week was taken up with Diwali holidays, so there’s been less people around for less of the time than normal! At around 1pm I return to the guesthouse to have lunch, usually rice, daal, curried vegetables and chapatis, sometimes followed by ice cream, and always accompanied by an anti malarial pill! After a short rest it's time to head back to the office for another stint. A lot of my time so far has been spent finding out about how the finances of Slum Soccer are currently being managed and thinking about what the next steps of development should be. I've also been drafting basic spreadsheets, forms and policies to help strengthen processes immediately. Usually Bardel brings round a welcome tray of tea mid afternoon – sadly no biscuits however!
By 5.30pm most people have headed home or to deliver coaching sessions in local communities so I make my way back to the guest house for dinner, and more free time ahead!!! Week 2 has now been and gone and has been a bit more difficult than Week 1. I've finally succumbed to the expected upset stomach, the effects of which are lingering a little longer than originally hoped for. My iPhone stopped working last Saturday so I had to rely on just using the wi-fi at the office to communicate with the wider world, which was fine during office hours but trickier in the evenings. Although the signal is still on, it was necessary to loiter outside and run the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes and other biting flies: my illuminated iPad screen being especially attractive in the gloom! Thankfully, after a few days of frustration, someone took me to the only Apple service centre in Nagpur and a system restore was completed without any problems. That only left the need to buy some more data! All mobile phones in India are prepaid so to buy data you have to physically go to a shop. Fortunately one of the young lads at the compound was able to take me by motorbike to a nearby shop to get this sorted – 165 Rs (about £2) for 1GB. The journey was mainly fine – I had a slight degree of concern when approaching a level crossing whose barrier gates were starting to close - and we just blithely carried on – but then they stopped to let us through! The railway is near the guest house and you can plenty of hooting of horns throughout the day and night – from that I would imagine the barriers are not always effective even when fully down! Although the compound is a pleasant place to be and it’s very handy, for example, to have a walk to work of no more than 150m, I am finding being on campus for days on end a little difficult including at the weekends – so far Saturday has been a working day. Being just outside the city limits means it can be tricky to get taxis to come to the site, so I’m really reliant on someone being available to take me somewhere. Having said that, the Lonely Planet guide to India describes Nagpur as an “isolated city which is well off the tourist track” so I'm not exactly sure where I would go! The guest house is also quiet, especially in the evenings. Mr Barse, the founder has been staying some of the time, but towards the end of the week he had to travel to Mumbai to enrol his adopted daughter Varsha for the next stage of her nursing studies, and so was away for a few days. I’ve been making use of my free time to make inroads into “A Suitable Boy”, Vikram Seth’s family saga set in India just after Partition, and the aforementioned wifi (and a little help from a VPN) meant that I was able to catch up with the televisual highlight of the week, the Great British Bake Off final, courtesy of the BBC iPlayer! As a fellow graduate of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge I was hoping that Andrew would win, but in the end it was difficult to disagree with the choice of Candice as a worthy winner. The work itself has gradually been picking up and I feel as though I'm getting a better idea of where the organisation is at from a financial management perspective. In a few days time, I hope to have drafted an initial financial management development plan to guide the rest of my time with Slum Soccer and, potentially, the work of any future AfID volunteers. It is an exciting time in the life of Slum Soccer, with an increasing number of opportunities to develop their work and it feels an appropriate time for me to be here to help them take stock of where they are and how they can develop further.
The Slum Soccer compound is based in the village of Bokhara just outside the city boundaries and it has been a surprise to me to find out just how quickly things change from city to country. As soon as you leave the main road out of the city, things soon get fairly rural. Being in the country doesn’t mean a lack of people however – there are many making their way around on foot, working the fields by hand or with ox pulling basic machinery. There are families living under apparently makeshift shelters in the fields next to the campus – and I don’t think they are on a camping trip. Various smells and sights would suggest a degree of open defecation is common. The large guest house where I’m staying is quite uncommon for the local area. The majority of houses are small, basic and appear quite run down. Although I’m enjoying the relative quiet of the location where I’m living and working, it is slightly isolated and it will be good to get out and about to see more of the local area when I can.
The second important event for Slum Soccer in week 1 was the gathering together of staff from both the Nagpur and Chennai (formerly Madras) offices for the first time for two days of team building activities and presentations. The team from Chennai had travelled for 12 hours or more by train to reach Nagpur – a distance of at least 600 miles - which gives a small indication of how large a country India is. The distance appears to cause the usual cross site communication challenges which are familiar to many dispersed organisations. One of the highlights of the two days for me was the opportunity to make short visits to some of the locations near to the Slum Soccer compound where football based sessions are delivered. Two of the sites visited were rurally based – the first in the courtyard of a run down village school, the second on some spare ground on the edge of a village. At both between 15 and 25 children were practising football skills after school. I suppose I had thought of slums as being in the city rather than the country – this may be true - but in India underprivilege and deprivation is not found in the city alone. Speed wasn’t a cause for alarm on this journey – this time in a microvan – rather the state of the roads which quickly deteriorated into narrow, rutted dirt tracks, with a risk in places of getting stuck in the mud! On Thursday it was necessary to travel into the city once again to register at the police headquarters. This time the journey through the traffic was on the back of a motorbike driven by Homkant – together with the scooter the motorbike is the most common form of transport here. It is usual to see two people on a bike but you do also see three people pretty often too – sometimes also with luggage! After a stop at a Xerox shop to get copies of the necessary documents printed, we arrived at the police station to find an empty foreigners desk… not a good sign although I'd already been warned that registration might be a slow process. As it turned out I think we got away fairly lightly after a wait of about 30 minutes - after the necessary amount of studied avoidance, shrugging of shoulders, discussions about how to proceed and apologies for poor service - which seem to be traits common to bureaucracies the world over!! Well it's been a week since I arrived in Nagpur to work with Slum Soccer. There's been a lot to take in, so I’ll just try to relate some of my initial experiences in the next couple of posts.
In terms of getting to work on financial matters it has been a very gentle introduction and a slow start. This was partly because early in the week, there was a lot of activity preparing for and then running a couple of significant events in the life of Slum Soccer, which actually ended up acting as very useful parts of my induction here. On Tuesday evening, Slum Soccer hosted an evening event to mark the recent presentation of the first FIFA diversity award and to celebrate with staff and local supporters. This was held at the International Peace Centre in the centre of Nagpur, about 20 minutes drive from the Slum Soccer compound. The journey there soon made me realise that my arrival from the airport was in fact rather a gentle introduction to the Indian style of driving – which very much seems to be: drive as quickly as you dare in whichever direction you want to go in, hoot your horn to let other road users know you are coming through, and only stop if you really really really have to – and stop at red traffic lights only if a policeman is present and you think he might catch you! Umesh, who brought me from the airport, turned into a racing driver as we made our way in his jeep (known as a “gypsy”) through the early evening traffic into town. I think he was joking as he said he learned to drive from watching the film “Fast and Furious” but the evidence suggested that it could certainly be true! The evening itself was very pleasant and it was nice to meet more of the team, to celebrate their success and to enjoy some delicious food. It was Abhijeet’s birthday so there was also a very elaborate and yummy cake for the guests to enjoy. I was honoured (if slightly embarrassed) to sit with the distinguished guests and to be invited on stage with them for a photo! In addition to various speeches of congratulations and thanks, guests were able to watch some inspiring films about the work of Slum Soccer and a playback of the ceremony held in Manchester in September 2016 at which Abhijeet received the award from the FIFA General Secretary Fatma Samoura. It helped me to see why he was so happy when I met him in Manchester in the evening after the ceremony! So why did I decide to travel to India to spend seven weeks sharing my financial management skills and expertise with the folks at Slum Soccer in Nagpur, India through AfID?
First a few details about myself: after graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in Natural Sciences, I spent a gap year working for a church in Easterhouse, Glasgow in Scotland – one of the most deprived areas in the U.K. I subsequently trained as an ICAEW chartered accountant with Deloitte in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, mainly in delivering audit and risk services to clients in the public sector. As a Christian who follows the God who showed the ultimate in love and service in sending his Son Jesus to die for the sins of those who by nature reject Him i.e. everyone, I have a strong desire to use the gifts and skills I have been given to serve others, whoever they are, and so as my career has progressed I’ve been keen to use my accountancy skills in contexts which seek to fairly directly provide social benefit. Much of my career has been spent in the education sector – first delivering and managing audit services for funding bodies and latterly as a senior manager in the UK Civil Service providing financial management support to large Government education programmes. I also recently became a governor of an outstanding school. Recent circumstances have provided me with an opportunity for a beneficial career break after many solid years of the '9 to 5'. Although I’ve travelled a lot in Europe and visited the USA, I have not been to Africa or Asia before and I felt the opportunity to volunteer overseas through AfID was too good an opportunity to miss before most likely getting back on what can be the treadmill of working life. Shortly after applying to AfID I was provided with a range of interesting opportunities relating to my skills and interests – at a school in Tanzania, at an agricultural enterprise in Kenya and here in India. I chose Slum Soccer because I wanted to see something different to my previous experience, India is known to be a fascinating country and the city of Nagpur appeared to be slightly less remote than rural Africa! I am also a football fan and interested to know how the beautiful game can be used for better ultimate purposes than the money soaked Premier League would suggest is possible! So here I am! I’m pleased to report I arrived safely in Nagpur early on Saturday morning after a long day’s flying with a short stop in Doha. I was surprised by the very large welcoming party which Slum Soccer had put on for me at the airport. There was a crowd of many hundreds of people – at about 3am in the morning – waiting for the flight! Sadly it transpired that this was for a large group of pilgrims on the flight from Mecca rather than for me!
Being probably only the third Western traveller on the flight meant that it wasn’t difficult for Umesh and a couple of other coaches who’d come to pick me up to recognise me, although we had exchanged photos just in case! An interesting 20 minute drive through the deserted streets of Nagpur to get to the Slum Soccer compound ensued – skilfully driven by Umesh – especially to avoid the freely wandering cows on the poorly lit roads. It was interesting to reach for the non existent seat belt too! I’m staying at the guest house on the Slum Soccer site, which is comfortable and very handy for the office, two minutes walk down the road. After a few hours sleep then breakfast, it was straight into a round of introductions. The team are making me feel very welcome, led by Mr Vijay Barse, who started the work which is now Slum Soccer about 15 years ago. His son Abhijeet now leads the day to day work and he and his wife Mahima arrived later in the morning to welcome me too. Slum Soccer hosted a major inter state football tournament for the last couple of days so Mahima led a review meeting with the young coaches to celebrate what went well, review what could be improved and ensure everyone knows what they need to do next. Abhijeet also began to explain how Slum Soccer has grown and what some of the current issues are. I’m looking forward to learning much more about the business in the coming days as we agree what I can do to help during my time here. Welcome to the "Oranges and Tigers" blog! I'm shortly going to be volunteering my skills in financial management to Slum Soccer, an NGO based in India. Slum Soccer uses football as a tool to bring about positive social development in the lives of street dwellers in some of India's biggest cities and my assignment has been arranged by Accounting for International Development (AfID). AfID enables accountants from around the world to offer their skills and expertise on a pro bono basis to small social enterprises which are working to bring about positive changes at grass roots level in developing countries. I'll be based in the city of Nagpur, India. Nagpur is famous for its oranges and is located near to a number of India's top tiger reserves, hence the choice of name for the blog! It's very centrally located, being pretty much equidistant from the east and west coasts and from north to south - in the time of the British Empire, all distances in India were measured from Nagpur. And I expect the weather to be pretty hot and sunny, although I'm assured that this is the best/ coolest time of the year for me to visit! This will be my first trip to India and I'm looking forward to learning lots of new things as I experience a new culture and meet new people, whilst hopefully being able to use my accounting skills and expertise to help Slum Soccer to develop their work. I'm planning on writing up some of my experiences on this blog every few days so please follow along if you're interested. I'd also be very pleased to hear from you! |
AuthorJonathan. Chartered Accountant from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. Spending a couple of months as an AfID volunteer working with Slum Soccer in Nagpur, India. Saved by grace through faith to do good works. ArchivesCategories |