Game on: Leveraging sports for community development with AAF

Sports provide a common ground where people can interact, learn from each other, and build strong relationships, fostering a sense of community and belonging. Not just that, engaging in sports also enhances health, provides valuable life skills and stimulates economic growth. The Anil Agarwal Foundation (AAF), the social impact arm of Vedanta, has been working towards the goal of empowering communities, transforming lives, and contributing to the nation’s development through sustainable and inclusive growth. Leveraging the transformative power of sports, AAF along with Vedanta’s Business Units has invested in several sports programs across the country, encouraging youth participation and bringing together communities in the process.

Promoting sports effectively begins with the establishment of world-class infrastructure, providing the foundation for nurturing talent and encouraging participation. Sesa Football Academy (SFA) in Goa is one such unique project that promotes grassroots football. It has a turf and a residential academy created on a reclaimed mine site. In the last four years, SFA has nurtured and developed several young, talented footballers, some of whom have represented India at the international level. The SFA, in collaboration with the Goa Football Association, has also promoted women's football by launching the Vedanta Women’s League. This league has completed over six editions, attracting the participation of approximately 125 women players in its 2022 edition.

Thanks to AAF’s efforts to identify young talent, 16-year-old Sahil Poonia was able to make his debut for India at the South Asian Football Federation U17 Championship in Sri Lanka in 2022, where he won the Best Goalkeeper award. The son of a farmer from Ladwa village, Haryana, young Sahil managed to impress the scouts from Hindustan Zinc’s Zinc Football Academy during his trial and bagged a scholarship in 2018. Zinc Football Academy is a fully equipped residential academy in Zawar, Udaipur. What sets it apart is that the academy offers the country’s first-ever technology-hinged football training, using the revolutionary F-Cube software to monitor and enhance the performance of the players. Zinc Football also has an extensive outreach program, which offers coaching to more than 350 children at 12 community football centres, known as Zinc Football Schools, spread across Rajasthan. In Bhadrak, Odisha, too, AAF developed the Randia football ground through the FACOR Sathi Krida Vikas initiative to nurture the true potential of children in the sport.

Vedanta, in partnership with the Rajasthan Cricket Association, is also developing the Anil Agarwal International Cricket Stadium in Chonp, Jaipur—set to be India’s second-largest stadium and the third-largest stadium in the world. This facility aims to provide athletes with the necessary amenities and environment to build confidence for global competition.

Over the past few years, AAF has also zeroed in on the importance of raising awareness about social initiatives at the community level. And one of the ways the foundation has done this is by urging people to come together to run marathons. Starting with Vedanta’s Delhi Half Marathon 2022 and 2023, encouraging #RunForZeroHunger, effectively combined sports and social impact. Vedanta pledged a nutritious meal for every child at Nand Ghar, AAF’s flagship social impact project, for every kilometre run, both on the race day and the days leading up to it. The initiative garnered massive participation, achieving 5 million kilometres and providing over 5 million meals to children at Nand Ghar in 2023. The marathon also saw active participation from nearly 30,000 Vedanta employees. While some ran in Delhi, others participated via mini-marathons in their business locations and through the StepSetGo app, leading to the race day.

Similarly, the Vedanta Pink City Half Marathon (VPCHM) brought together over 12,000 runners in Jaipur, who ran to raise over one lakh meals in December 2023.

The universal appeal of sports can be leveraged to transform India into a global sporting powerhouse. AAF’s efforts to provide opportunities to youth across the country aim to ultimately drive positive social change and development in the nation.