Football training for poor girls: Panja to inaugurate project Damini

Kolkata: Shashi Panja, minister of state for Women and Child Development and Social Welfare, will inaugurate Damini, a project of Kolkata Police and Shreeja India, as a part of community policing where girls will be given coaching in football to build their self-confidence and bring them to mainstream life.

This is for the first time when the city police have taken up such a project, where keeping football in the centre stage, attempts will be made to develop confidence and personality of the girls coming from economically-challenged background.

Goalz is a project of the city police, where boys are given coaching in football and matches are regularly held as a part of community policing.

The training will be provided by Shreeja India, an NGO set up by Shiv Shankar Dasgupta, an alumnus of Jadavpur University now settled in US. Shreeja India will provide the coaches and will do the necessary mentoring. Kolkata Police will select the ground.

Shreeja India has been giving football coaching to some tribal girls in Birbhum for the past two years. The coaching has yielded good results as the girls have developed self-confidence. They are also given coaching for their studies by trained teachers.

The project has received support from the villagers, who encourage the girls to play football. The practice of giving training in football to build social cooperation, has started globally.