During the programme implementation the organisation established alliances with national and international organizations involved in helping the development of women’s football and fighting for gender equality.

By doing so, theyhave managed to create a community that includes Sub-committee on women’s football, that has helped with the creation of different events and workshops with diverse stakeholders. This has improved the programme’s visibility and reach in communication.

This community, operates with the following main activities:

1. Recruitment of professional female coaches and participants to conduct football training.

These professional coaches helped to:

• Organize football matches within their community.
• Participate in different tournaments. Locally, state, nationally and internationally.
• Create other workshops to train girls to be coaches. (Train the trainers programme)
  • By getting in these programmes, girls are able to apply and get a D-license that will qualify them as coaches.
  • Life skill couching and training.
• And very important, get sponsorship for some of the participants

2. Coaches helped to connect and engage with the community (parents, residence welfare associations, police, and community leaders) by:

• Educating parents. Helping them understand the importance of letting their girls be in public places.
• Help negotiate the provision of safe public places and gender rights training schools.
• Improvement of facilities and competitive opportunities for girls.

Some of CEQUIN projects are:

• Football Camps and mentoring schools’ teams– CEQUIN conducted an inclusive graded programme with adolescent girls in various schools of Delhi and Mewat. The camps included technical training along with training sessions covering topics of health, gender, livelihood and leadership.
• Grassroot Community Girls Football League– For the first time, CEQUIN took the initiative to mobilise girls from local communities to play football league matches in the public parts of their localities.
• Goal for Girls – CEQUIN is part of Goals for Girls project which is an international network working towards building young women ‘s leadership skills and teach them how to be agents of change, in their own lives and in their communities. Every year CEQUIN participates for the Girls Leadership Summit.
• Launched  the first Under 13 Delhi Girl’s Football league. CEQUIN launched this league in partnership with Football Delhi, the governing body of football in Delhi, and the premier club Delhi Dynamos, With participation by 517 girls from 32 teams, this League enabled many girls from vulnerable communities and underprivileged schools to compete on an equal platform with those from affluent backgrounds and private schools
• Convening the National Alliance for Women’s Football (NAWF) – CEQUIN has led a football movement for girls in India by bringing together the main stakeholders such as AIFF, State Football Associations, clubs, academies, UN agencies, NGOs, media, corporates and bilateral agencies, to strategies and promote this agenda. The initial stages of setting up the conclave involved a lot of discussion pertaining to challenges faced by girls, especially those from vulnerable communities. CEQUIN played a key role in this dialogue, sharing knowledge gained from experience working at the grassroots level, local content and nuances with regard to gender discrimination and the need for mindset change.

Through our advocacy work, India won the bid for hosting the U-17 FIFA Women’s World Cup 2020.

• CEQUIN got awarded for using ‘Football as a Tool for Empowerment of Girls’ by FICCI at GOALS 2019 and received the Best NGO in Football development Award from Football Delhi.

  Football matches – CEQUIN girls participated in Diana Jones matches under both junior and senior category. The girls played competitively and received support from their families which earlier used to be a challenge. Through continuous engagement of the intervention the families have been able to trust us in sending the girls to play matches.  These girls can now travel alone for the matches and managed to strengthened their negotiating skills.  The girls were able to qualify quarter final and semi-final matches which was a big victory for the girls.

• Created a substantial pool of qualified football trainers, 8 of whom have acquired a D-Licence.

KickStart Equality started in 2011 in Delhi. Today the programme has expanded and covers more cities like Jamia, Nagar, Delhi, Mewat and Haryana.

The key implementers of the programme were CEQUIN football coaches and their implementing team on ground. The organisation collaborated with various schools, football clubs for various league and friendly matches.

In terms of finances, the programme has received organisational funding for the various activities but it has been a struggle as a civil society organisation to generate resources for long terms engagements. The sustainable solution was building  structures like grassroot football leagues at community level which is self-sustained model.

Present  across more than 6 majors cities in India. In total more than 15861cities have been reached through the Kickstart Equality Campaign.

Specific results for some of these cities:

1. Delhi (2011-2019)

• 10,882 participants in football matches & tournaments.
• 5047 girls attended practice sessions and camps.
• 4529 girls trained through regular school camps between 2017-19.

2. Mewat (2017-18):

• 2203 impacted through football camps.
• 16,740 people impacted indirectly.
• 14 recipients of D-license trainings, making them licensed football coaches.
• 465 girls received regular (at least thrice a week) training.

1745 beneficiaries of life skills, counselling, and leadership training workshops.

More specific impacts and improvements of the girls involved in the programme:

Health Impact:

• Better eating habits:
  • Reduction of 20% in street food consumption
  • Reduction of 15% in consumption of sweets.
• Better menstrual hygiene materials:
  • Increase of 45% in sanitary pad, tampons and menstrual cup. (before that they were using traditional cloth).

Education:

• Increase of girls pursuing higher education in a 20%.
• Increase of more than 88% in the ability to pay attention in class.

Marriage:

• Increase in average age of girls wanting married (from 21 to more than 25 years old) in a 20%.

Confidence:

• 95% of the girls felt more confident.

Through the football programme KickStart Equality have been able to create sustainable models with the launch of Grassroot Community Girls Football League in local community. The grassroots league not only encouraged girls to play but it also changed the mindsets of male members in the community which was a shift in the narrative of girls being more visible in public spaces in their leisure time which was sports in this case.

Long term impact at the level of the participants has been noticed. Part of the senior participants are working as female football coaches not only in CEQUIN but also in well-known football clubs, associations and schools. They are supporting their families and have become financially independent.

CEQUIN staff  belongs to Jamia community which eased the process to build networks, linkages and trust while working in the community. What worked very well was the fact that the staff were able to create an enabling environment for the community people which helped the smooth implementation of the football project.

The biggest challenge was social – cultural barriers while working in a minority community.  At times to convince an elder member of a family about a girl’s sport became difficult as the control lies with the male member. Women still don’t have voices to negotiate their opinion, so they are not able to put their voices and opinion forward. There have been cases where girls had to drop out of the programme due to family resistance, early marriages and restricted mobility.

Due to partnerships such as schools, the organisation had to adapt the project’s programme to the schools’ academic calendar.

Through Football the organisation was able to touch on various aspects of a girl’s life –like health, education, livelihood, leadership skills etc.

This initiative can be considered a best practices because the organisation used sports as a tool to engage communities and address the parents about sports and its long-term impacts.

During the course of the intervention the organisation was able to create sensitivity and awareness about girls’ sports in schools and communities anda difference was noted not only in girls’ personalities but also their communities – eco system?

Though the National Alliance for Women’s Football platforms the organisation has been able to sensitise sports associations, corporates, platforms like CII and FICI to view sports from a gender perspective and start the conversation around creating more female sport role models to encourage girls’ participation in sports.

Some of the recommendations for others working on similar issues can be:

-Important to understand the sensibilities of the communities before starting an intervention.

-The project focused on working not only with the participants but included their parents like father, brother, mother in our various other projects which made it easier for them to be sensitive towards a holistic development of a girl.