India

SLUM SOCCER

Slum Soccer aim to reach underprivileged people using football as a tool for social empowerment. They operate all over India, and engage several hundred children and young adults every day.

Slum Soccer India promote development through the medium of football on a daily basis. Providing socially neglected people with a chance to play football not only enhances their fitness, but also encourages skills and values like team-building, self-esteem, friendship, self-confidence, and creativity. Organised sessions with trained coaches are conducted on a regular basis, reaching as many as 700 children every day.

ORGANISATION DETAILS

PARTICIPANTS

Children, young men and women living in slums, including those squatting on government land, those displaced because of natural disasters, and children of sex workers.

LOCATIONS

Nationwide

Country statistics

131 out of 189 in Human Development Index ratings (UNDP, 2019)

$1,900 Average annual salary per person (World Bank, 2021)

22.5% of the population live under the poverty line (UNDP, 2019)

Hosting a population of 1.3 billion, India is in Southern Asia between Myanmar and Pakistan. Covering just over 2.9 million square kilometres of land, India is comprised of an estimated 60.5% of agricultural land (CIA Factbook, 2018).

India has some of the highest levels of disaster displacement globally, with 3.9 million new disaster displacements in 2020. The majority of these are triggered by flooding during monsoon seasons. It is also prone to other sudden and slow-onset hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, storm surges, and droughts. In addition to this, there is also inter-communal violence which triggers displacements, but to a much lesser extent. Due to climate change, hazard intensity is increasing, and with a high level of social and economic vulnerability it increases the exposure to disasters (Internal Displacement, 2021).

More than four million people are currently homeless in India (Reuters, 2020).

There is a current shortfall of 10 million urban housing units, and it is estimated that another 25 million homes are needed by 2030 (Habitat for Humanity, 2021).

Home to a quarter of the world’s undernourished people, India has a per capita income that has more than tripled, but the minimum dietary intake fell and the gap between rich and poor increased (WFP, 2021).