Mann Deshi Champions

We identify prospective outstanding athletes, provide them with excellent sports facilities and nurture their overall physical, mental and social development.

We aim to

Create better opportunities for young girls and boys in rural India to play sports both in and out of school

Create a mobile app to bring talented athletes, coaches and funders on the same platform

Train local coaches to identify and train talented athletes

Offer financial and professional coaching support for talented young rural athletes to participate in state, national and international competitions

Focus on and increase girls participation in sports

Promote a career in sports

We aim to

Create better opportunities for young girls and boys in rural India to play sports both in and out of school
Train local coaches to identify and train talented athletes
Offer financial and professional coaching support for talented young rural athletes
Focus on and increase girls participation in sports
Promote a career in sports

Youth Development Center

We are excited to announce our new youth development programme for young rural women. This is a career development programme to provide a host of training and support services which focus on self awareness and confidence building. Our courses include self-defense, personality development and imparting a variety of skills such as effective story telling, English speaking, driving and presenting your best self at an interview.

Since many of our students are keen to enroll in the police and defense forces, we prepare them for the physical and written examinations. This programme is supported by Rythm Foundation.

Mann Deshi Elite Athletes Programme

This programme, supported by IndusInd Bank, nurtures young high potential athletes — particularly young women athletes — who are economically disadvantaged. They are given training, nutritional support, life-skills workshops and scholarships. Our athletes participate in a number of sports such as track and field, wrestling, badminton, field hockey and swimming. Most of our athletes end up playing at the national level.

“In 2011, one of our athletes Sarita Bhise ran the 800 meter at a local event and won. At that time, she didn’t own a pair of decent shoes. Today she is the captain of Maharashtra’s Under-17 team for field hockey.”

Prabhat Sinha, Founder Mann Deshi Champions Programme

We identify prospective outstanding athletes, provide them with excellent sports facilities and nurture their overall physical, mental and social development.

OUTCOMES

7,000 athletes

inducted into the programme.

300 athletes

competed in district, state, national and international level competitions.

Meet Prajakta Shinde

Prajakta Shinde is from Dahiwadi village. She is a daughter of a single mother. At Mann Deshi's Youth Development Center Prajakta developed skill sets for stage daring, improved her English and understood methods of giving an interview. Today Prajakta proudly says that she has secured a job at Tata Consultancy in Pune.

Support this program

To learn more about how our programmes make a difference read our Stories of Change.