Project Khel: For Akshai Abraham, education is just child’s play

While mugging up for almost every exam, I wondered when in life I would use what I learnt about kinetic energy, or which career would require me to draw an obtuse-angle triangle. I’m not against learning History or Geography, but what about knowing how to resolve conflicts, or communicating effectively?

It was thoughts like these that led Akshai Abraham to start Project KHEL (Kids Holistic Education and Lifeskills), after working for around eight years in the development sector. Having studied in a boarding school where sports were given much importance, Abraham realised that his personality and character were shaped by what he learnt outside the classroom. That’s where the idea of sports for development came from.“After college, I worked for a year in Austria and living in a developed country motivated me to return home and work in the social sector,” says Abraham. Since 2012, Project KHEL has been helping underprivileged children reach their potential through play.

Abraham and his eight-member team work with around 1,200 underprivileged children, between 8-18 years, from slums, shelter homes, orphanages, low-income schools, and with children of domestic and migrant labour, of rickshaw pullers and paan shop owners, across 19 locations in and around Lucknow. Using the concept of play, “we use team sports (football, volleyball, handball, basketball, kho kho, kabaddi), games, theatre, music, dance, and art, to teach them life skills,” shares 38-year-old Abraham.

Each of the hour-long sessions, conducted twice a week, comprises two parts. Out of 60 minutes, 25 are devoted to playing a sport, after which “we have a debriefing for five minutes. As facilitators, we observe and encourage the kids to talk about their behaviour and what they’ve learnt. For example, when we’re playing dodgeball, the boys generally have a tendency to reach for the ball, even if it’s headed toward the girl standing next to them.

When a boy does this, but realises it and gives the ball back to the girl, we appreciate it. It is this behaviour that moulds character and teaches things like gender sensitivity”. In the next 20 minutes, the kids learn life skills, such as empathy, through an activity-based curriculum, followed by a debriefing session once again. There are four levels, and as “we go higher, these kids who would not even play with the opposite gender, later have heated discussions on serious topics,” says Abraham, who plays all sports except golf and is now falling in love with ultimate frisbee, a mixed-gender sport with no referee that closely matches with what Project KHEL tries to teach.

“At stage four, we had introduced the concept of ultimate to other sports, including kho kho, kabaddi and volleyball. With this variation, they have to learn to communicate and resolve their conflicts,” he says. 

Talking about the way in which the programme is customised to a high degree, Abraham says, “We assume that different groups will progress at different speeds. Even within groups, since every child does not learn at the same pace, the fast learners are given leadership opportunities as peer leaders, who help the facilitators conduct sessions, while the slower ones are given more time to learn.”

“A lot of people think, ‘what are kids going to learn from playing?’,” says Abraham, who believes that if we let boys and girls play together today, we might change things 20 years from now. Through these interactions, the children learn to follow rules, teamwork, discipline, strategies, communication, leadership, gender sensitivity, and to win and lose gracefully, which can’t be taught in a classroom. “There’s no need to lecture about women empowerment when a girl, who is otherwise not allowed to play with boys, kicks a ball in a mixed-gender team. They realise that girls can play as well as boys, and if she can’t the guys give up their game to coach them,” says Abraham, whose favourite  sport is basketball. 

With state, national and international-level players on team Project KHEL, the kids learn rules, techniques and enjoy the game, albeit not with the aim of creating sportspersons. It’s not just the children who learn; the team members undergo a facilitator-to-facilitator learning programme too as well as intensive weekly trainings on Sunday mornings.

Role play

Project KHEL also conduct workshops across the country. “Ours is a preventive approach. In a menstrual hygiene session, we talk about myths and restrictions, such as not eating or touching pickle, not sleeping on the bed, not entering the kitchen... They can challenge these myths once, but if they live in a joint family they shouldn’t suffer. We ensure they understand that one day when they’re mothers, they shouldn’t let this continue. When we do role plays, the boys take up women’ role and understand what the women in their homes go through.”