Sky blue thinking is best for bangladesh
|Bangladeshi team celebrate after an exhibition match held in honour of Brazilian football legend Pelé. Image: SHI
How the brilliant Bangladeshi team are breaking barriers (and records) ahead of their first appearance at the Homeless World Cup. Sports for Hope and Independence (SHI) will bring a team representing Bangladesh for the first time ever to the Homeless World Cup in Sacramento in July 2023. Izzy Irvine spoke to one of the founding members Pappu Modak about what this means for the team.
They might be one of the Homeless World Cup newbies this year but Bangladesh are already breaking records - your actual Guinness World Records, at that - as they get set to bring their toe-tapping tekkers to Sacramento this summer.
Pappu Modak, founding member of Sport for Hope and Independence (SHI) shares their story, the devastating effect of the pandemic and Bangladeshis’ big love for their great supporters, ‘La Albiceleste’.
“Sport has been my passion since childhood,” says Pappu, “I played football but I wasn’t very good and had a few accidents. Really, I preferred to play cricket - we were the generation that grew up in this cricket-crazy country!”
After finishing his education, he initially worked in a non-sport sector then fate intervened and Pappu became the first youth leader participating in the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace (UNOSDP). It was founded by Kofi Annan in 2001 with a mandate to coordinate UN efforts to promote sport as a means to achieve development and peace. That changed his life.
“When it comes to sport development it’s practically non-existent in our country and I felt drawn to this area to make it work,” he enthuses. “I also used to work as a physio - when I worked with people with spinal injuries, they were initially very sad because of their accident but when I introduced them to wheelchair basketball suddenly, they transformed. They started communicating with each other, delighted in scoring and began to enjoy life. This inspired me - I knew this was what I wanted to do.”
Pappu worked in one of the largest rehabilitation centres in the world, based in Dhaka. “It was helping a limited number of people, though, as it was geared towards people with disabilities,” he adds, “so I spoke with people who would become the founding members of SHI and persuaded them we could do something for all the people, to give everyone the opportunity to play and grow.”
Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world - at 165.6 million it’s 8th in the world - with 15.5 million of its people currently internally displaced in the country, due to climate change-related disasters like flooding. The nation also hosts almost a million Rohingya refugees who have fled persecution in Myanmar. Over five million workers in the country’s garment industry - the lowest paid in this industry anywhere in the world - risk their safety on a daily basis, and around 4000 city slums are home to nearly 3.5 million.
|Girls play football at a camp where many Rohingya refugee children are living. Image: SHI
Sport for Hope and Independence (SHI) certainly didn’t have to look far for their challenges when starting their journey on 17 March 2016. They use sport as a tool for child and youth development, girls’ empowerment and life skills development for those with disabilities.
“Since our inception we’ve been working in different parts of Bangladesh, particularly underprivileged areas, with Rohingya refugee children, slum children, street children and people with disabilities,” Pappu explains. “We’re currently working in seven districts - there are 64 in total - and during 2022 we trained nearly 7000 people, using sport to address social issues such as child marriage.
“There’s also the challenge of communities becoming more individualistic so we try to bring them together to sort out their issues. Last year, for example, we initiated a project when we found the road surface at the entrance to a school and its sports’ pitch was in a dangerous condition so we brought all those involved together and, in one day, everyone joined forces to fix the road.”
| People worked together to mend the entrance to the school and sports pitch. Image: SHI
Players who are using football to change their lives
With so much good work happening, on and off the football pitches of the Bengal Basin, Pappu could fill multiple websites with positive stories however a few players come instantly to his mind.
“One of our youth participants, Deb Proshad Shil travels over 70km by bicycle, each day, to support his family,” he says. “He sets off at 6am every morning, transporting milk around his delivery area some 35km away, returning home by 3pm. Then he starts training because football means so much to him. It’s his way of expressing himself.
Another participant, Mohammed Nayan Mia who was born with disabilities, had been told he couldn’t play football with other children.
|Pren Chong Mro with his Guinness World Record Certificate. Image: SHI
“His peers were reluctant to socialise with him because they hadn’t seen people with his disability before - he has a congenital deformity of both hands. He contacted me around 2016 when he was 12 through social media and we started working with him, then his community. After a period of time, we gave him the opportunity to participate in a game he loved. Even though he sometimes gets frustrated and thinks he’s not achieving anything, his teammates are now encouraging him to continue.”
Now aged 20, Nayan’s journey has been so inspirational that he’s featured in SHI’s documentary ahead of this year’s tournament.
“I’ve seen people with disabilities who never left their home because their family was too worried about what people would think,” adds Pappu. “Now Nayan is not only participating outside his village, he’s travelling throughout the country, advocating for disability sports, and has even been to the USA for training.
“Nayan is now training other people - around 50 children at the moment - as a youth leader. The boy who didn’t want to go outside is now training dozens of other children, now a leader in his community of Kishoreganj and they’re supporting him.
“This is how sport can transform lives.”
Pappu continues, “Another of our participants, Pren Chong Mro, his mother was paralysed when he was in primary school. His father then took care of him until he passed away then, four months later, his mother passed away. A couple of months after that his grandmother also died. He was young, alone, living below the poverty line but still had his passion for football. It was his escape.
“He taught himself to do ‘toe taps’ by watching it on the internet. He’s 23 now and, last year, he made the Guinness Book of World Records for the most football toe taps. Pren Chong Mro recorded 212 toe taps in one minute on 21 August 2022 - check it out!”
The impact of Covid-19 and the global pandemic
Of course, for all the success stories there remain obstacles - one in particular was as a result of the recent global health crisis, as Pappu explains.
|The SHI girls’ team at the national rugby championships. Image: SHI
“Covid was a challenging time for us. At the start of the pandemic, we had a girls’ rugby team - who used to play for their district in a national championship - as well as a girls’ football team which was a very new venture for our organisation. However, during lockdown we couldn’t communicate with everyone and lost half of our female participants.
“A huge number of the girls were forced to get married over that period. Their fathers were so poor and couldn’t afford to feed their families that it became better for them to marry off their daughters so they would be the responsibility of another house to feed.
“This is such a sad experience for everyone involved. It took us almost three years, working every day, to get the girls to this level of sport performance and overnight everything was lost. It was a lesson for us that we must, at all costs, keep communicating with our players throughout times like these.
“At the moment we’re working hard to communicate with all our coaches, players and volunteers and to advocate to our girls that they shouldn’t get married before they’re 18; to let them know the rules and regulations, and make sure we share our contact details and the national helpline so they can get in touch if they have issues. There are some situations where you can’t do anything but we have been successful in preventing a number of forced marriages and of making the girls aware of their rights even if their parents coerce them.”
Rebuilding the girls’ football programme
Work is continuing to build the girls’ football team - in 2022 they were able to train around 1200 girls - however due to financial constraints they will be unable to bring a women’s team to Sacramento this summer.
“I’m hoping we can travel with both teams next year,” says Pappu. “Fundraising is not our area of expertise so we are working with external specialists to raise money. Our supporters help us with their hearts, rather than financially, but we’re using their connections to reach businesses. We plan to do events in May (after the end of Ramadan) and the response we’ve had so far is overwhelming.”
In addition to financial limitations, cultural constraints have also provided their challenges around the running of a girls’ team as he explains:
“When we practice with girls aged 8 to 20 - we play separately because of the restrictions of our conservative community. Initially we experienced opposition to girls participating but we worked with local leaders in schools and colleges, religious leaders, and the local government to let them know we were planning to do sporting activities through a development programme. We had to ensure that the girls who wanted to play were allowed to play, that the community should support people with disabilities, and they should support our overall objectives. In most cases we succeeded.”
A recent taste of success on the ground came on 29 December last year when SHI organised a girls’ football championship in a tea garden (plantation) where the workers are the most marginalised communities in the country. The workforce had been employed inside this specific tea plantation for the last 200 years and rarely ventured outside as this was their ‘world’.
|One team take a break during the girls football championship held in a tea garden Image: SHI
Pappu takes up the story, “Suddenly the tea garden manager said, ‘You can’t play in our playground’ and tried to prevent us from organising the match. So, the tea garden community - their girls would have been taking part - went to their manager and said that if the tournament wasn’t allowed, they would go on strike! Eventually he let us go ahead and all the tea garden workers - over 300 of them - took leave collectively to watch their girls play. That day there were nearly 1500 people supporting the teams.
In addition to the increase in their football skills, he assures that their girl players have definitely become more confident, citing a recent incident in a town in southern Bangladesh called Bagerhat.
“When I first met the girls, in 2016, they were shy, didn’t want to answer anything, were hiding behind each other. If you asked them something they would lower their heads and scuttle away.
“Now when I visit them, I sometimes get tired of their questions! The good thing is, they’re inspiring other people. In our country boys used to tease girls a lot, calling them names and it used to be common for these girls, because of their participation in football and rugby, to be picked on when they were on their own. Now they’re more united and have built a support system to deal with this. In fact, there was a situation recently where a boy teased one of our girls and all her team members turned on him and started hitting him, like he was a punchbag. We had to intervene and impress that they shouldn’t do this; but they told us this was the treatment they received, and the boy deserved it!”
At the moment, however, the focus of all involved, is on the country’s first involvement in Homeless World Cup 2023 in Sacramento. Most of the players who will take part all already part of the SHI development process - some are already working as youth leaders in their community while some came to light through their network system, all matching the strict criteria to be assessed as homeless.
“At the moment we have two people with disabilities in our team, one of whom will be part of our team regardless of their football ability,” adds Pappu. “We want to take a diverse team to California because even a single person can motivate thousands of other people with disabilities. It will be a tough choice for us, though. Probably six players will be selected for their football skills, one for personal disability and one for developing their own community with football skills, so they can explore with other countries how their community programmes are working.”
|Arif Billah (left) took part in the Homeless World Cup referee training course in Nagpur, India in April 2023 run by Adil Leite (right). Image: SHI
Media interest in this football development, in the tournament and football in general has escalated in recent months. Bangladesh’s last international match was covered by national newspaper Prothom Alo and BBC Bangla.
“I think the media appreciate our efforts and the initiative, so we are expecting good media coverage of our participation in this Homeless World Cup,” he says.
“Some of our players have graduated into working as coaches with younger people, too,” says Pappu. “Last year we ran community football coaching sessions with our youth leaders; this year, with support from the community football federation, they will participate in grassroots training programmes. After that they can start applying for their C licence and so on. We are also working with one of the oldest football clubs in our country; one of their main coaches, who is pro licensed, has been supporting us voluntarily to develop the coaching culture in our country through organised training sessions.
“We have a few people officiating too - former players who are enthusiastic volunteers. Last week I heard that education for officials is going to be held in India so two of representatives will travel there - one as a translator and one of our enthusiastic volunteers to enable him to train more people.
Pappu’s enthusiasm and pride in his job shines through in every sentence uttered. So personally, and professionally, then, has football overtaken the beloved cricket in his heart?
He laughs. “If we compare cricket and football now, overall Bangladeshis love football more than cricket especially in the rural areas. Also, cricket is an expensive game involving more material investment and not everyone can play at once - 13 playing together at one time and the rest watching from the side - whereas you can buy a football for $6 or $7, bring a crowd of people together and everyone can play. When our resources are limited, this is crucial.”
Nationally the populous has grown football crazy, especially following a recent victory over traditionally stronger African opposition, the Seychelles (and a draw against Malawi) and then, of course, there’s Argentina.
“I think you’ve heard how Bangladesh support Argentina!” laughs Pappu.
Without a national team to follow in World Cups the Bangladeshis have channelled their fervour into Argentina over the last decades, thanks to the exploits of one Diego Maradona in 1986 in Mexico in his country’s victory over England in the tournament.
“Our nation loved how such a flawed character could triumph over adversity and a greater power and that mantle has since passed to Lionel Messi,” he adds.
So popular are the sky blue and whites - La Albicelestes - that it’s said 70% of Bangladeshis support Argentina on the football field. That passion has led to Argentina recently reopening its embassy in Dhaka, 45 years after it closed, and the South American country reciprocating the support for its national football team by backing the Bangladesh cricket team. In football rankings, that’s Bangladesh who are currently 192nd, while World Cup holders Argentina are in second spot!
Now Argentina against Bangladesh, under blue skies at California State University this July…that would be the crowd-puller!
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Words: Isobel Irvine
Photographer: All images provided by Sports for Hope and Independence