Not Just Football - There’s More To It!
Abhijeet is the CEO of Slum Soccer, an organization that runs football programs for the most disadvantaged members of Indian society.
The decrease in harmful activities such as violence and drug use and the improvement in the participants’ lives inspired Slum Soccer to expand its programs to over 15 cities.
Previously, Abhijeet was a Lecturer in the Department of Zoology at Nagpur University. Abhijeet is from Nagpur and has a PhD in Inland Aquaculture from the Central Institute of Fisheries Education.
Key Takeaway:
1. A Small Idea Became a Social Revolution
Slum Soccer began as simple neighbourhood football tournaments on open grounds—but a single moment changed everything. When a marginalized boy said, “Today no one called me names… they only appreciated how we played,” Abhijeet realized football was far more than a sport. It became a tool for dignity, voice, and social transformation among communities who are otherwise unseen.
2. Football Is the Great Equaliser
On a football field, every child—regardless of caste, gender, socio-economic background, or religion—becomes part of a team. Slum Soccer uses this shared identity to break deep-rooted biases. Abhijeet recalls boys initially refusing to pass the ball to girls, but after just one game, those same boys said, “If we’re equal on the field, maybe we should be equal at home too.” This shift in mindset captures the power of sport to create real social change.
3. International Exposure Builds Pride & Purpose
For many players, representing India at the Homeless World Cup is the first time they step out of their city, sit on a flight, or even hold a passport. But when they stand on an international pitch and the national anthem plays, they transform from “slum kids” to Team India. The experience instils confidence, aspiration, and a belief that they matter—both to the nation and themselves.
4. Shakthi Girls Is Redefining How Girls See Themselves
Through football, Shakthi Girls teaches menstrual health, safety, leadership, and gender rights—embedded within play. The smallest changes speak volumes: girls who once hesitated to shake hands become confident in just days. They begin voicing dreams like “I want a room of my own to study,” or “I wish my brother shared the workload.” The initiative has sparked both personal and household-level transformations.
5. One Coach’s Story Shows What True Empowerment Looks Like
The journey of coach Pankaj encapsulates why this work matters. Growing up with violence, poverty, and ridicule, he persisted through football—eventually representing India and now coaching the national team at the Homeless World Cup. When parents from his old community tell Abhijeet, “I want my son to become like Pankaj,” it proves that Slum Soccer is not just shaping players—it’s creating role models for entire communities.
6. Ambition Must Be Balanced With Empathy
With thousands of children but only a handful who will reach elite levels, managing expectations is key. Abhijeet stresses that Slum Soccer meets every child “where they are,” ensuring they enjoy the sport without the pressure of becoming stars. At the same time, coaches gently push children who underestimate themselves, ensuring everyone grows—emotionally, mentally, and physically—regardless of talent level.
7. Local Leadership Is the Secret to Sustainable Impact
Slum Soccer doesn’t import coaches into communities—it builds leaders from within. Youths become players, then mentors, then licensed coaches. The Deaf Football Program now has 14 fully certified deaf coaches teaching deaf children—proof that empowerment is both circular and self-sustaining. This grassroots leadership model ensures authenticity, trust, and long-term impact as the program scales.
Chethan K (Host): Hi, Abhijeet. Welcome to Edexlive podcast.
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
Chethan K (Host): So football started as a game of joy in the rain, but today it's a national moment for empowerment. When did you realize that this wasn't just sport but a social evolution?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): Slum soccer started in 2002, and all we were doing was giving an opportunity for children and youth from slums to participate in football tournaments.
This was in Nagpur and we were doing these small tournaments and we were giving a chance to those, especially who never had an opportunity to come on a football field, nothing fancy. We would do the tournament at any place, as it doesn't have to be a full scale football page, or it doesn't have to have all the trappings of a good football court or anything. It is just like any open space, as long as it is flat and safe, we would invite youth to come and play.
It was during one of these matches, one team had come from a very backward community, even within the underserved community, and they were never given a chance to play.
They were always called names when they wanted to play and after winning one match, one of them came to me and say, “Sir, Today, nobody called me names, they only marveled at the way our team played.”
At that moment I realized that this is the start of something really big and sort of like it then took off from there.
Chethan K (Host): That's nice. You have often said football creates equality the moment player step onto the field. In a vast country like India, how can sport become a blueprint for social inclusion and equality beyond the grounds?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): One of the primary reasons why we selected football and not any other game was its ability to include as many people, as many players as possible.
So, two can play, 22 can play and sometimes we had seen, there were 30, youth playing in one sort of team.
So this uniqueness about everybody being involved, usually in other games there are only few people who are on the sidelines and then they're waiting for their turn. In football, everybody gets active, that's one thing.
Also the fact that once you get on the field and you put on the uniform, you become part of a team, you are no longer an individual. It doesn't matter what social, cultural or religious background you're coming from, you're a part of the team. Now, we heavily promote that as a fact. We have repeatedly seen in many communities in which the boys were hesitated to pass football to girls when we started this mixed gender play.
But even after one single game, we would see the change in mindset of the boys. One of the boys, he told me, if we are equal on the field, then maybe we should also be equal at home and at other places also.
So I think this was sort of like how we pushed for social inclusion beyond pitch.
Chethan K (Host): So slum soccer has represented India at international stages, like the Homeless World Cup and FIFA events. How has this global exposure shaped your understanding of Indian position in the sports of development movement?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): In India, we have this unique distinction. Despite a lot of people playing, there's this gap that exists, people are existing either at the top most level of the game, where there are a lot of visibility, and the other level where people are playing with no sort of hope or direct linkage, if they will be able to make or bake their career into sports. This is a huge gap.
For the first time when we sent the team to Homeless World Cup. I never, since this is a repeating sort of thing, many of our players had never stepped out of their city or state.
Many had not even sat in a train, forget a flight.
A lot of them struggle with getting documents done in time, so making passports for them. These are all challenges that they have to overcome, but the moment this slum kid steps onto the pitch at an international event, he becomes Team India. When the national anthem plays on a pitch and you're standing with your teammates, you understand the gravity of the situation of what and where you've come from and what you're going to play for.
Today, we are using football not just our kids to overcome their personal circumstances, but also to build communities around it. So we may be doing all of this out of necessity, but this is also how sort of sport development is sort of shaping our experiences and their experiences also.
Chethan K (Host): The project ‘Shakthi Girls’ focuses on empowering young girls through football and health education. What have been some surprising lessons and successes you have seen with this initiative?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): So ‘Shakthi Girls’ creates a pitch for girls, not just like limited to playing football together, but also supporting each other off the field. That is the idea behind ‘Shakthi Girls’ and we teach them a lot of important issues which they may like, feel shy about or not feel that they're capable of learning.
We start with menstrual health management, gender-based violence, sexual reproductive health, leadership. All of these lessons are taught to them through the game.
One of the easiest tests, which I am always surprised, is that when you go and meet a girl who is coming for the first time to a football pitch and you shake their hands, they're not confident in shaking hands, but when I meet them even after three or four days, their handshake becomes firm. They look at your face and say, “Good morning or good evening, sir”, that slight change is from just by participating in a team sport.
I'm not just going to say, here's this football, every other sport that we have started working with, we've seen them gain confidence at such a rapid speed that it always surprises me.
The other part which surprises me is how quickly they find their voices.
Like they shy well, and once we did a small sort of activity where we asked them what they would want, like at home, but they don't feel confident asking.
So they wrote all sorts of thing like, I want my separate room to study, or someone would say, I wish my brother was also doing the same amount of work that I was doing.
This level of awareness and conversation started after us working with them. The other surprising part was like mothers coming and supporting their daughters.
This we didn't think was possible. Today we have also started a separate program for mothers called “Mothers Cup”. So this has been like originating out of ‘Shakthi Girls’, but now it is also a separate program.
Chethan K (Host): That was an amazing story, sir. So you have often said sport can transform mindset. What one story from the ground that still gives you goosebumps and reminds you why you do and what you do?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): There are so many stories. I would be doing injustice to a lot of people who work very closely with me.
But let me just limit myself to one story.
We had this one coach who is working very closely with me, his name is Pankaj. So he came from a very difficult background. His father was an alcoholic and he personally had a lot of issues, and there was a lot of violence where he grew up around.
But despite that, he would come regularly to practice. He was not a great football player to begin with, but his consistency and his attitude towards learning was something which stuck with me. They would tease him because he was very thin and he was also dark in colour, but he persisted. He stayed with the program, he played, he continued to play. He kept improving. In 2011, he represented India as a player at the Homeless World Cup.
Today he works side by side with me and is also the coach for Homeless World Cup Team India. When one of the parents from where he stays as near his community where he now takes football sessions, came and told me, I want my son to become like Pankaj, and that was one of the biggest, it shook me. I mean, like that is the power of what sports can do for someone.
Chethan K (Host): So, slum soccer works with communities often left out of mainstream opportunities. How do you balance ambition and empathy, towards pushing people to dream big while keeping them rooted in reality?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): Our program is aimed at serving the last of last.
We work with youth and children coming from slum where they have very little in terms of access to sports, infrastructure, and public transport to get them from wherever they are to where the facilities are. But the moment they step on the football field, suddenly they start dreaming big. It becomes really difficult at times to manage their expectations. Everybody wants to become a star player.
Today in the world of social media, in the world of quick successes, it becomes a big challenge for us when we have to tell a child that you were not selected because there was someone else better playing than you.
But what we have done also with them is we meet them where they are, whatever level they are, we will sort of address them there, not where we particularly want to take them because it is difficult. When we work with 1000 children, there are only four or five who will be making it up to a state level, maybe one who will make it up to the national level, and even that is a rarity.
So we work continuously with them. We tell them that if not for this team, you would still continue to play to the best of your ability.
We give them the best of what we can, but we take away the pressure or manage the expectation in such a way that they are enjoying the game, learning not just football, but also the important elements of life as we teach things through football.
Sometimes when people have low expectations of themselves, we try and increase their expectations also, like in some cases, girls will come and sit beside the pitch and say like, I don't want to play because I don't know how to play, and then the coach intervenes and say we would still want you to play and enjoy. It doesn't have anything to do with becoming the best. It's about having a good time with your friends. So it sort of goes both ways for us.
Chethan K (Host): So you have mentioned the challenges of scaling while maintaining local relevance. How does slum soccer ensure program stay authentic and impactful at community level?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): In short answer, it's local leadership.
If we are working in Seemapuri in New Delhi, we will work with the local leaders. We will not take coaches from somewhere else and work with them. This is again, time consuming, like you have to look for people who match your description and then slowly build them up. But wherever we go, we will pick people who are from the community.
The coaches will be from slums, our players. In one year they will play, but in next couple of years, they can become mentors. They can become coaches.
Today, if you see we have a deaf program, which started in 2018 or 2019, and today we have a batch of 14 deaf youth licensed coaches.
They are the first batch of D-licensed coaches who are entirely deaf, and now these deaf coaches are going in deaf schools and teaching deaf children.
So this is how we sort of scale. It's slow, its labour intensive, but we don't want to take away anything from the people who have worked hard on it and as I said in my earlier story, we promote from within. So player has an opportunity if they stick with us to become a youth coach, a program lead, or even a manager.
Chethan K (Host): So, looking ahead, what exciting innovations or teams do you foresee shaping the future of sports development in India and how slum soccer is preparing for them?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): I see a lot of things even happening now across India where sports are played for entertainment, for relaxation. This is a very happy trend. Like growing up I would see a lot of people not taking, or rather giving up sports after you reach a certain stage or age in life.
Whereas sports is about enjoyment. It's not about competition or mastery. It's about having good time with your friends on the field where you can be yourself. Have fun, laugh at your own course.
So I feel this is one of the emerging trend is where more and more people are coming ahead and taking up some sports.
I mean like the paddle ball thing is a recent trend, but it has penetrated even tier three cities where people are coming out just to play with friends.
Now, that is one important trend, which I feel is like taking India by strong.
The second is, again, integrating learning into sports, like especially in schools and all nowadays, sports is being used as a tool to teach important lessons like using.
We do that lot here because it is important for the mental health of children that they understand setbacks and drawbacks don't define their life. I mean, if you can teach a child to lose gracefully or not to take every loss personally, there will be fewer suicides among students. So I feel that this integration, and I think a lot of people, schools and colleges and institutions are now doing it. So I think that is the other trend which I'm seeing and I'm feeling happy about.
Chethan K (Host): That's nice, sir. So which is your favorite sport?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): Of course, partial towards football. I feel that football in India has had its really long incubation period, and now we really need to get out and get to a stage where we are making our country proud.
Chethan K (Host): Do you often play football?
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): I do play. I'm not that good.
Chethan K (Host): Thank you for being on Edexlive podcast, sir. It was a pleasure talking to you.
Abhijeet Barse (Guest): Thank you.
