What I should do with my NGO: Retain talent or encourage export?

28/09/2015

Having established a fairly sustainable grassroot development model that suits Indian conditions, my Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) and its flagship project One Thousand Hockey Legs(OTHL) begs some questions right now, and await for suitable answers.

The brain storming kind of thing is needed to move forward without getting into irresistible urge for instant success, and without diluting the very purposes for which the NGO was formed at the first place.

The NGO was formed to create a hockey culture in the schools and provide every chid of the country to an opportunity to play the game of hockey, which will act as an instrument of their career transformation.

Coming to the point directly.

Last year, one of the Delhi OTHL schools, Saket, won both the Nehru-Dhyan Chand Cup and then biggest ever school prize money event, Cairns Juniors Hockey Cup for NCR region.

The Government School in South Delhi was becoming a true force when six of the boys got an offer from private school. The offer includes English medium education at free of cost, scholarship etc. OTHL’s objective, second only to creating a hockey culture in schools, is to use hockey as a medium to transform lives of needy poor sections of students.

I allowed 5,6 Saket boys to move to the rich Sikh Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee managed school in Delhi, who took them in to reinforce their existing hockey team.

The best goalie of the Delhi OTHL also hailed from the Saket School. I sent him for trial at the National Institute of Patiala, where he got selected. My NGO bore all his expenses for this and even paid school fee of Rs.5.2k, and got him settled at Patiala in addition to other two boys. The boys got free education, boarding and lodging besides getting trained at the premier institution. Now there are at Bhubneswar playing inter-SAI tournament.

By and large, once the boys move out of OTHL, they belong to new label, and will become other’s property.

With the core of the team had gone, the Saket school team was back into building process; lost the semifinals of this year’s Nehru Dhyan Chand Cup, and fared not well in the recent Delhi State Jr. Championship.

Had I not allowed these boys to move out, Saket would have been a hot property in these tournaments and also other tournaments to come up in the season. They would have given name and fame for the NGO.

The school set up which helped the team to come up and count is also disappointed that OTHL allowed its stars to go away.

BUT I DID IT BECAUSE,

***Incubation of talent is the first objective of OTHL, not extracting compulsory glory out of it
***School tournament wins are not right barometer to measure the real success of the school or any NGO. They are starting points for sports development, real measure comes later with each player showcasing their potential on University, State & National level.
***Its not boys but schools (management and coaches) who benefit because of school tournament successes which often lead to ills (prolonging players’ spell in schools by cook or crook, importing over-age talents etc.).
***The real measure of success will lie when the students will knock the doors of State, National and international sides. Or, get career opportunity due to combined result of hockey and academic excellence.
****The NGO has 24 schools in Delhi alone. However, best not all schools will tournaments, the objective is to see more and more play the game for fun and recreation. However, the incubation concept, selfless nursery kind of approach, not falling prey to instant success – however laudable – will harm the NGO in the long run. Feels many who are also equally concerned about my work.

THEY FEEL THAT

***The NGO’s success will be measured by numbers, certainly not by qualitative objectives
***One day a question will be asked how tournaments your NGO won like that
***Not many successful players unearthed by the NGO will give credit to it. Because, the adopted institutions will claim them as their product, not the NGOs(which is also the experience of the NGO).
***A NGO cannot sustain without measurable field success.
***NGO needs to retain best talent, do well at Nationals so that it attracts the attention of selectors who normally focus after teams reach certain stage like QF, SF etc.
***Only winning teams (its called position holders in bureaucracy) get certificates and perks (scholarships, rewards by Govt, SHA etc); their visibility and popular brand the regularly winning school will help them get good jobs and land in good colleges at least.

I think there is merit in both arguments. I need valuable, unbiased views from all concerned.

It is actually easy for the NGO to pool best talents in one or two schools and keep winning every tournament and get instant success.

Is it the way forward? Or something else.

Send in you views at hockeycitizengroup@gmail.com