A CHARITABLE organisation, set up by an Indian teenager, is to bring 15 children from a slum community in Mumbai to play a series of football matches against schools in Gloucestershire and Surrey.  

Ashok Rathod, now 28, was just 18-years-old when he set up the Oscar Foundation, which encourages slum children to stay in school, and he is in the Cotswolds this week on a fundraising mission for his latest project.

Next October, the foundation's under 14 team will play four schools in matches over a 10-day visit as part of an ongoing campaign to link sport and education across the world.

Ashok's parents are uneducated, and his father still works as a fisherman, while the whole family, including Ashok himself, live in the tiny six-foot square family home.

“His parents were insistent he went to school,” said Lucinda Magraw, a freelance publicist based in Frampton Mansell who met Ashok whilst working in the Indian capital last year.

“He resented them for forcing him. Meanwhile his friends would go to the fishing port, pick up fish which had fallen out of the nets and sell them. With the rupees earned they would give a few to their parents to silence them and the rest they would squander on drink and drugs.

“At the time this seemed like a much more exciting life.”

Lucinda said when Ashok was 18 he realised his parents had done the right thing by insisting he had an education. “He turned from being resentful to grateful” – all too aware of the temptations for the young children in his community and he decided to do something about it.

He started a football team to give the poorest, most “at risk” children something fun to do. Everyone wanted to be in Ashok’s football team, giving him the ideal starting point to set up the foundation.

“The ethos is to link education and sport,” said Lucinda, who is working alongside Ashok to ensure enough funding is gathered for the 10-day trip next October, with one of the schools on the fixture list Beaudesert Park School in Minchinhampton. “To be a part of Oscar you have to go to school.”

One of the challenges faced by the organisation over its initial 10 years is convincing struggling poor parents to send their children to school and not out to work from a young age. Ashok has held over 100 talks, made two TED lectures and flown to China to introduce the template for his charity for integration into Chinese slums.

He is currently visiting the Cotswolds to meet local representatives from FIFA and Forest Green Rovers, as well as ex-Arsenal and England player Tony Adams, as he drums up support for the latest project.

Over the course of his stay, Ashok will have presented to over 2,000 school children, including Beaudesert Park School, Cheltenham Junior School, Cheltenham College and The Cheltenham Ladies’ College (CLC).

After his presentation at CLC  a group of students will have the opportunity to ask questions on a live Skype call with the Oscar children in the Mumbai slum.

Ashok will also lecture at two schools in Hampshire and to meet The Countess of Wessex.

A small gathering will be held at Lucinda’s home in Frampton Mansell on June 9 to kick off the fundraising, with guests including Mr Adams and actor Nathaniel Parker.

Lucinda returned to Mumbai in April where she stayed in the slum community and got the chance to meet the Oscar Foundation’s under-14 team, who will be taking part in the matches.

“Having met them all and spent time with them and watched them training, they’re all lovely kids,” she said.

“When they are playing the match against Beaudesert they will also have a lesson at the school because it’s about education and football together, and then they will do the match, and then stay the night at Beaudesert.

“The deputy head is football mad. He was very excited when I suggested it. They’re doing it because they can absolutely see that it’s beneficial to their children, and it’s beneficial to the children coming over. Everyone’s a winner with this project, really.”

She said: “They don’t have much kit. Some of the children have football boots but many play bare foot. Their standard of football should be the same as ours even though the children may be smaller.”

Lucinda is looking to help raise £30,000 over the next few months, to cover everything the 15 children will need for their the trip.

The “experience which they can share and inspire and lead” others back in India on their return is worth all the work, she said.

Two Cheltenham based companies, Chartered Accountants, Mitchells and The Renewable Design Company have set the ball rolling by funding the children's visas and passports.

When Ashok started the foundation the youngest children were only eight-years-old but now they are 18 and many work for the charity. “They’ve learnt through the system, they’ve been educated and are now mentoring. The structure of this charity is all about leadership.”

She said many people have questioned how these children, who have only ever known slum life and “sleep on floors” will cope in England.   

“I don’t think the children necessarily want the riches we have. They have a different expectation, aspiration and religion. The children want education, opportunities and experiences, just like us."

During her visit in April, Lucinda, as well as her husband Julian Sowerbutts, stayed with Ashok and his family at their home.

“There’s no running water, there’s no toilet, no shower – nothing,” she said. “What they have got is a beautiful display of pots, and it’s as clean as a whistle. You could eat your dinner off the floor it’s so clean.

“When you walk out of his house, if you had a bit of a wrong footing, you’d end up next door. But it’s actually a really happy place. It’s not miserable a place at all.

When she first met Ashok in the Oscar headquarters in Mumbai last year, she said there were framed press clippings all over the walls that had parts cut out.

She was told that all the newspapers kept referring to this ‘Slumdog charity’ because of the film Slumdog Millionaire.

“They don’t actually like the word ‘slum’. For them it’s a community not a slum but I did say to Ashok, for my purposes I have to call it a slum because that’s what we relate to, and that’s what pulls the heartstrings.”

Visit mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/oscarukschoolstour to donate to the project or contact Lucinda at lucinda@magrawpublicity.co.uk if you would to get involved as a sponsor.

For more information on the Oscar Foundation, go to oscar-foundation.org