Interview with LeapStart: Aiding the grass-roots level sports revolution in India

Despite being a country of a billion sports aficionados, India is not a world leader in sports, in fact one very far from it. Lack of proper infrastructure for budding sportsmen to grow, lack of opportunities etc. are termed the usual suspects when discussing this issue, but the biggest problem is the lack of a system in place at the grass roots level to encourage children towards sports right from a young age. What better example to illustrate for this than FC Barcelona‘s youth academy La Masia which picks talents at very young ages, provides them with world class facilities and excellent training and turns them into world beaters. That system of ‘moulding them when they are young’ is looked at as the ideal solution to producing outstanding sportsmen. It is this grand idea that LeapStart, an organization based in Bangalore, is based on.

Committed to providing high quality fitness and sports education to children, LeapStart is affiliated with 26 schools across the country and makes a significant contribution to the grass-roots level health and sporting revolution in India. India, being a country of vast differences where child health is never taken too seriously, can be a nightmare to implement such a programme that reaches out to all children. From obese kids who have all of the first world health issues, to children who go to run down state schools in the hinterland and have access to sub-third world infrastructure, LeapStart aims to reach out to children all over the country, break the barriers and provide them with high quality fitness and sports training.

Sportskeeda’s Harmit Kamboe sat down to chat with the organization to learn about their mission, how they implement their grand plans and ideas for the future.

Harmit: Please tell us how and why LeapStart was incorporated.

LeapStart: LeapStart was started as a joint venture by a group of friends who were very passionate about sports during their college days but could not pursue it seriously as there is not much value to sports as a profession in India. The main founders were Dev Roy, Aditya Kaura and Mishika Goel who decided to give something back to the field they loved the most. That is how LeapStart was born.

Nourishing sports in youngsters and producing good sportsmen is something that should start at the grass roots level. So what could be a better platform to start with than schools where we can mould children at very young ages! If we raise the quality of sports at school levels and make it more professional, we will surely be contributing to producing good sportsmen for the nation, thus improving sports as a market in our country.

Harmit: Can you quantify how bad the situation with some urban school going children is when it comes to health?

LeapStart: It is too soon for LeapStart to come up with quantifiable data regarding the trend of deteriorating health in the urban school scenario, as we are just a year and a half old organization. It takes more than 2-3 years to gather significant data and come to conclusions. But, by going through the recent published data, I can say that the current picture doesn’t look too good! Urbanization and modernization, sedentary life, consumption of oily and junk food and other life style changes has contributed to overweight and obesity.

The calculated global prevalence of overweight (including obesity) children aged 5-17 years is estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO), International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) to be approximately 10%. Various studies in India have found that the incidence of childhood overweight/obesity has increased dramatically. Recent data indicate a rise in obesity both in children and adolescents in our country. The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity in urban children in New Delhi has shown an increase from 16% in 2002 to about 24% in 2006-2007.

Harmit: What kind of structure do you bring to schools to change this scenario? Where do you get your expertise from?

LeapStart: At LeapStart, we believe that if a school does not deal with children’s health by design, they deal with it by default. The evidence is overwhelming and clearly shows it is difficult for students to be successful in school if they are unhealthy, obese or lack self-confidence.

Currently the large majority of schools are simply not set up to provide comprehensive physical education programmes that allow children to realise the important benefits resulting from a healthy and active lifestyle.

So, how do we bridge the gap? Age appropriate physical activity programmes for children lead to improved results in mathematics, reading and writing, as well as a reduction in disruptive classroom behaviour. Research shows that physical activity boosts a child’s ability to concentrate and has considerable positive impact on overall academic achievement.

Ours is a research backed curriculum. All the lessons and equipments used are age-appropriate. There’s a new lesson to be learnt in every class! We have the best of the advisory staff with us including Mr. Paul Rosengard from SPARK, Ted Murray, Nisha Millet, J Arun Kumar and Pradhyum Reddy. Our trainers undergo refresher training camps every few months to keep up with the new developments and techniques of training.

Harmit: Can you share some examples of how age based instruction is not thought of by most schools and sports programmes?

LeapStart: The same game is played by children of all grades. One game is given more emphasis than others and is played in all the PE classes. Students have very few good equipments, as a result of which the students do not get adequate opportunity to excel in a sport.

Harmit:How do you reach out to state run schools and small private run schools for children that come from poor backgrounds?

LeapStart: We are conducting LeapStart classes for the Prerna Shiksha (Below Poverty Line project) at DPS, South. We are also in talks with a reputed private run school for its Community School. If all goes well, we may start our Community Outreach Programme in one of the state run schools soon.

Our tennis coach, Ted Murray and his team of trainers are working with full fervor to find children with the talent for going big in tennis. Their search is not limited to posh academies or private schools but also the slums across the nation. The selected children will be sponsored completely by LeapStart and would undergo extensive tennis coaching by Ted and his team.

Harmit: Do your programmes leave a positive impact on the traditional PE teachers who may or may not have had access to some of your best practises that you had the benefit of?

LeapStart: Yes, definitely! Well, our programmes are usually not well taken by the PE staff initially, but that is expected as there is a certain level of insecurity of sharing their job commitments with somebody from the outside. But as time passes, they realise that our objective is to deliver a quality programme in the school and we aim to achieve this by working along with the PE staff. We believe it to a bilateral learning process. As we begin the programme in any school, we train and educate the school staff and the management about the strategies exclusive to LeapStart.

Harmit: What are Leapstart’s future plans?

LeapStart: In the future, we aim to be a major contributor of child and adolescent health across the nation. We aim to provide not only a quality programme for all students but also wish to set up academies for various sport specialties and arrange for scholarships abroad for the deserving students. It is not a long term goal for LeapStart as we have already started with the process. We are in talks with universities and clubs abroad for scholarships and we have already set up our Tennis academy with Ted Murray, our tennis advisor. Our vision is to produce a Wimbledon champion from India in the next 10 years!

Harmit: Many thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Congratulations on the great work so far and good luck for the future.

Edited by Zico