EXCLUSIVE: Oscar Foundation founder Ashok Rathod talks about his work linking education and football across the world

NOW 28, Ashok was just 18-years-old when he set up Oscar, which encourages slum children to stay in school by linking sport and education.

In October, 15 of the foundation's under-14 boys football team will visit the UK alongside Ashok and play against teams from four schools, including Beaudesert Park in Minchinhampton.

“All the children coming are the first in their families to ever have a passport,” said Ashok. “The point is, when you gift a child a passport, you are actually taking them one step closer to giving them confidence to fulfil their dreams.”

The Oscar Foundation has led to Ashok travelling across the world to spread his ethos and raise funds, but he has never forgotten his roots.

His parents are uneducated, and his father works as a fisherman, while the whole family, including Ashok, still live in a six-foot square home in a Mumbai slum community.

“I live in a very small area but it is very crowded,” he said. “We have almost 12,000 houses in that area, and it is almost 30 acres, where more than 60,000 people live.

“It's a big population and there is no running water, no toilets and for school the children walk one to two kilometres.”

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.

“Many of the people there are uneducated, very few people think about the future, mostly they think about the present. How we can make more money.”

He said many parents will send their children to the fishing ports to collect stray fish and sell them at the markets, rather than go to school.

“My father, he told me to go to school. He told me to do something different compared to other people in the community. He was really strict.”

In the meantime, Ashok watched his friends from afar “making good money” at the markets, though by the age of 13 or 14 “nobody was there to guide them, to advise them”.

“So they were spending the money on smoking, drinking and gambling, and that led them to criminal activities,” he said, which meant their parents forced them to settle down and marry by 18, and have children.

“I was in college and I saw the next generation from my community dropping out of school, going to the fishing market, making money and forming addictions,” said Ashok.

“I thought, I need to break this cycle, so decided to teach them football. I identified 18 school dropouts and I started teaching football to them and through football I send them back to school,” he said.

The Oscar Foundation runs a number of educational programmes as well as community projects, and Ashok has even been to China to introduce the charity’s template in slums over there.

“We set up an education programme in formal education, computer programme, library, so then they can come in and improve their education and go back to school, and also come to our regular football practices,” said Ashok.

Only children who stayed in school could play for Ashok’s team, with football in the slums representing liberation in more ways than one.

“In the community there is no space, but when they come to play football they get given more ground,” said Ashok. “They make more friends, and they get chance to go to different places for matches and exposure.”

In 2011, Ashok set up a girls team, which was unheard of in his community, and at first all of the parents refused to allow their daughters to play.

“I know what it is like for girls in that area,” said Ashok, who spent three years trying to persuade the parents.

“You can teach only boys, but for us, girls and boys are equal, so they should be allowed to experience football and education all together.”

So he gave the parents an ultimatum: “if you don't send your girls to play football, we will not teach your boys”.

“Because of their boys, their parents were ready to send their girls,” he said.

The girls team started with 10 players who “had never even seen football in their life” let alone played it, with Ashok tricking them into arriving at a ground for a tournament thinking it was a picnic.

“These girls were asking, ‘what do we need to do?’ I said, ‘you need to play football match.’ They said, ‘we don't know how to kick the ball’.

“I said, ‘it's a very simple game’,” said Ashok.

“You need to remember only three rules – the first rule is that you don't allow the opponents to score in your goal posts.

“Second rule is you can't touch your hand to the ball.

“Third rule is, whenever the referee blows the whistle, you stop.

He said: “They did very well. In front of the goal posts, they made a wall. No score, nothing. That match ended in penalty shootout and we lost in penalties.

“Of course, they didn't know how to save the penalties, but the girls got the confidence.

“They thought, okay, we can play.”

Now, Oscar has more than 100 girls across various age groups, and Ashok said his next goal is to bring a girls team to the UK in 2018 for a similar 10-day tour as the one in October.

“We would like to bring our girls team here, but first we wanted to make this trip successful, so their parents can get the confidence,” he said.

Beaudesert Park and Cheltenham Ladies College, as well as a number of other schools are keen to support the girls tournament.

Stuart said: “What we're looking for is, not these 15 children come and go and that's the end of it.

“We're creating these sort of partnerships and supporters for the next five or 10 years.

“And even these 15 children will act as ambassadors for the charity.”

Numerous Cotswold businesses, charities and individuals have helped fund the trip, from sponsored walks to bake sales, and Stuart said an event like this creates an easier platform to encourage people to get involved.

“All different people in the area are supporting us, and that wouldn't happen without those 15 people coming over,” he said. “It doesn't just happen. You can't just go out there and go we've got a charity, it doesn't work.

“People can get creative. They just go off and do their thing. ‘I'm going to go off and climb a mountain for you’. That's what we like,” he said.

Lucinda Magraw, a Cotswold-based publicist, who is helping Ashok, said: "I think the schools in the UK are really excited about helping and seeing their own children in this privileged society and children from a totally different background, and learning from each other because ultimately they are the same.

"They are just young people with a dream.

“The thing that needs emphasising is these children are really cared for, living in loving families and although they are not well nourished, they are not malnourished.

“These are vibrant children who love football, and Ashok has chosen children who have been with Oscar for two years at least.

“They have shown commitment to their education.

“The selection process included behaviour, dedication to their education and commitment to Oscar, and probably lastly their football,” she said.

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

Lucinda Magraw, Ashok Rathod and Stuart Christie at Jolly Nice in Frampton Mansell