Sticking together with ‘StickforIndia’

A. Joseph Antony

ANANTAPUR: The flight from Amsterdam took 12 hours and the drive from Bangalore to Anantapur, four more. Yet Spanish hockey wizard Santi Freixa was as fired up to train poor children, as when turning out for his country, fatigue and jetlag notwithstanding.

Dividing time between playing for Amsterdam in the Dutch league and his MBA studies, what drew the double Olympian to Anantapur, a drought-driven dust-bowl? It was to live a dream he shared with teammate Andreu Enrich of using sports as a means for social development.

After the December 2005 Champions Trophy in Chennai, Enrich visited the Rural Development Trust (RDT), an Anantapur-based NGO. Soon Freixa, adjudged International Hockey Federation (FIH) junior player of the year in 2004 and twice European player of the year, and Enrich set up ‘Stick amb India’, a registered society in their native town of Terrassa, to fund an academy in Anantapur.
Taking wing

Micro monthly donations came mostly from members of their club, Atletic Terrassa.

In 2006, Enrich, along with Spanish woman international Clara Vancells and clubmate Anna Serra got the scheme going, which from its grassroots beginnings took wing.

Since then, Enrich, a business management graduate, has made eight visits, overseeing a full-fledged residential scheme for children aged between 12 and 16 years.

Freixa, meanwhile, enrolled the support of Dutch drag-flicking destroyer Taeke Takaema, Australian Jamie Dwyer, German Timo Wess and compatriot Pol Amat.

The project also enjoys the blessings of FIH President Leanardo Negre and current Indian coach Jose Brasa, also a Spaniard.

Backing on home turf has come from Indian custodian Adrian D’Souza, Vinay VS, Vikram Kanth and Hari Prasad as also from past greats Dhanraj Pillay, Mukesh Kumar and Harinder Singh.
Pixels for sale

For further funding, Freixa and Enrich, the latter an ardent admirer of micro-finance Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, have set up www.stickforindia.com.

If small steps lead to great ones and a wall is built brick by brick, the website has 10,000 pixels for sale, each costing €10.

While a formal launch is planned post European Nations Cup at Amsterdam in August, about 5 per cent of the pixels have already been picked up.

Some of international hockey’s leading lights are pixel patrons, including England’s Simon Mantell, Australians Andrew Smith and Alyson Annan, Germans Matthias Witthaus, Max Weinhold, apart from compatriots Alex Fabregas and Sergi Enrique.

A 760-member Facebook community will help too, hopes Enrich.

To enable the sport’s spread across India, the Spaniards and RDT are hoping to raise resources and lay an astroturf surface that will cost Rs. 1.6 crores.

To promote the project in a big way, the duo has invited professional film-makers from Spain in September to make a documentary on the scheme that D’Souza describes as a stunning success.