Jaspreet Kaur | Generation Amazing Foundation

JASPREET KAUR, 32

India

“Slowly, slowly, change comes,” says Jaspreet Kaur, 32, from Rurka Kalan in the Punjab region of India. Jaspreet is a Generation Amazing youth advocate and one of our one million beneficiaries.

For the past ten years, Jaspreet has been running “Football for Good” programs at schools across the region. We first came to learn of her good work when we launched two grassy pitches in her region of India.

Sports have always been a passion for Jaspreet. Her family struggled economically and there weren’t many sporting opportunities available to Jaspreet or other girls in her town of Rurka Kalan.

“From my childhood, I was very curious about sports and I participated in games during school time. But after school, there was no opportunity for girls in the community, no after school sports or clubs.”

After finishing school, her love of sports led Jaspreet to the Youth Football Club (YFC) in Rurka Kalan in 2013, a partner of ours. She became the first woman to join YFC, both in terms of instructors and students, when she was appointed as a sports teacher for the girls’ primary school in Rurka Kalan.

“I felt very happy to be reconnected with sports. The lack of opportunity when I was younger meant that I couldn’t play sports outside of school time. Now, I was using sports to teach children life skills and values.”

Through the lens of football, the YFC delivers “Sport for Good” programming across schools in the region. Students attend workshops on gender equality, sexual reproductive health rights, leadership, tolerance and more. Children and young people are empowered with life skills and self confidence, and learn the values of team play, fairness, tolerance and peaceful conflict resolution.

Through the program, Jaspreet saw change amongst young people in her community happen first-hand.

“After one year, we had seen so many positive changes in the students. They had confidence, they participated in sports, they even improved their health and hygiene habits,” she says.

Over the course of the next few years, Jaspreet expanded the program to 18 government-run schools in Punjab, impacting nearly 10,000 children as well as other stakeholders like women and teachers.

Like the beneficiaries of her programs, sports have also changed Jaspreet’s life. In 2015, the United Nations Office on Sport For Development and Peace (UNOSDP) invited her to attend a leadership camp in Japan.

“Japan was the turning point of my life. It was the first time I left my country; it was the first time I left my village, and for such a great opportunity,” Jaspreet exclaims. “I interacted with so many different people, who I learned so much from”.

Japan was the first of many football-based international trips, through which Jaspreet has been able to explore new countries and meet a diverse group of people.

In 2018, she travelled to Russia for the FIFA Foundation Festival and met our executive director, Nasser Al Khori, for the first time in person. She became a GA youth advocate and attended our inaugural Youth Festival in 2019, delivering her football for good and capacity-building workshops to an international group of attendees.

In the lead up to the World Cup, Jaspreet came back to attend our 2022 Youth Festival and enjoy a game!

“I feel very proud because I, for the first time, had the chance to tell my story in front of 400 students and VIPs. It was such a nice feeling, something I can’t express in words. I had never done this type of presentation in my life, and it was a such an important experience”

These opportunities did not only change her life, Jaspreet adds, it slowly, slowly, changed the people in her family and community as well. Where before they were suspicious that she — a woman — worked amongst men and in sport, they later saw the impact it had on her and her students, and the opportunities it afforded her. Their attitudes began to shift.

“I have seen many changes in the last ten years. Before 2013, there were zero girls on the field. Now, fifty percent are girls and fifty percent are boys. I’m personally working with 3,097 students, and half of them are women. And most of the youth leaders I’ve been working with are female. I have two males and nine female leaders,” Jaspreet exclaims proudly.

“I don’t want the girls to face what I faced in childhood. I want to share my story with them, so they can go and play on the field”.