At a troubled time when whole of India is going through Corona pandemic, there were many reported incidences of racial discrimination of people from Northeast India who were being called corona virus. Infact India has history of racist behaviour towards people of Northeast, with derogatory names like chinky, chini, momo etc being given to them, at times even taking extreme form of being killed as in the case of Nido Tania of Arunachal Pradesh. Here we present a story of a youth from Northeastern state of Arunachal whose Sport’s initiative for the poor children of Delhi is not only generating good will but also bridging the gap that unfortunately does exist.
Since 2013, Jambay Gyaltsen Chetan who has been selflessly training the sons and daughters of domestic workers, drivers and security guards in Defence Colony, in badminton free of cost. For the past 6-7 years he dedicated his time, energy and resources for the betterment of these children. There are about 35-40 children any given time – and nearly 80% of them girl students.
This initiative groomed many children into champion badminton players and well behaved children. His hard work is now slowly paying off as students are winning competitions and bringing laurels. Despite not having best of facilities to train under the children won many medals and trophies from various badminton tournaments especially in their Inter-School Zonal and Inter-Zonal competitions. Few students are exceptionally talented and as they have spotted and given chance early on at the grass root level, there is every possibility that they could someday win medals for country and make us all proud.
These kids with ample time in their hands and with no proper supervision by their parents as they are always busy (being domestic helps) could have fallen into wrong companies/activities if not for this initiative. Through this initiative, kids not only channelize their energy into something constructive, but are also groomed to be a disciplined and good human being in days to come.
Having witnessed first-hand all the positive changes that his initiative has brought about in the lives of these children he has the complete support of all the residents living around the park and everyone contribute in whatever way they can to make the initiative a success.
Everyone who come across his initiative finds it very inspiring and comes forward to support him in whatever possible ways. He has the supporters and well wishers from all walks of life, like Supreme Court Lawyers, Chartered Accountants, Doctors, Businessman and even Politicians.
But the best and the biggest thing that happened to this initiative is the coming on-board of Sports giant Yonex, as you know it is the biggest Global brand in the field of Racquet sports. The impact of his initiative was such that even Yonex took note of it and offered to join hand with his initiative. It is really a big achievement to have a backing of such large MNC for a small initiative like this. A deal was recently signed between them – wherein as a pilot project Yonex Sunrise Sports is fully sponsoring 4 of his top performing students for their Advance Coaching at the Bisht Academy Sirifort and they are doing really great there and we believe very soon these children could break into Delhi’s top badminton players. Even more satisfying feeling is the fact that out of 4 students undergoing the training 3 of them happens to be girls.
We present this story of ‘Chetan Bhaiya’ as the children fondly call him with the hope that it motivates more people to take up similar initiatives in their areas and not just keep the spirit of humanity alive and popularise sports at grass-root level just as he is doing but also to make people aware of racial discrimination.