Slumdog footballer becomes 'Oscar' winner

Colaba youth won the Heroes Award for using football to spread education in his slum neighbourhood through his Oscar club

ndia and Mumbai have yet another Oscar winner in Ashok Rathod (20), a resident of the Babasaheb Ambedkar slums in Colaba, who won the Real Heroes Award instituted by CNN-IBN, in partnership with Reliance Industries Ltd. Rathod, who won in the youth category, is an inspiration to the 100-odd youngsters in his neighbourhood.

He began the Oscar Club in Colaba in 2006, which primarily coaches members in football and rugby, as an outlet for teens in difficult circumstances. Rathod says it was with a strong urge to change the world that he started the club. "I was lucky that I could attend school and meet people who changed my life, and the life of others in the slums where I grew up," said Rathod. It was in school and a chance encounter with a non-governmental organisation that helped Rathod fine-tune his skills in not just playing football, but also rugby and the art of mentoring slum youth.u00a0

Rathod says his most painful experience has been watching his friends fall prey to drugs and gambling. "This sparked off the urge to make life different. I began training children to play football over the weekend after making them promise that they would have to attend informal reading, writing and arithmeticu00a0 classes for free thrice a week," Rathod adds. "Our condition is that if you want to play, you have to study. You need not be a good player. We are now working on ways to convince conservative slum-dwellers to send their girls to school," he says.u00a0u00a0

Rathod was among 24 real heroes who were given the award and a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh each on Thursday. "He has given us a new purpose in life. He is our hero," says Shankar whose friends Govind and Maruti practice football and rugby as a team with him at the Oval Maidan.