A group of girls, in black tee-shirts and shoes, sat under the refuge of a shamiana at the Corporation Ground in Nungambakkam, watching men battling it out in the basketball court, soaking up the blistering Sunday morning sun. Eight all-male teams from various IT companies were part of the tournament ‘Game Changers’, an annual fundraiser event conducted by the Young Indians (Yi) Club of the Women’s Christian College (WCC).
Sarika Bapuji, student coordinator for the Young Indians student net, WCC, also the coordinator of the event, says that they chose to include only the all-male teams due to lack of women teams in the IT companies. “It isn’t really hard to find male basketball players. So many of them play. But I don’t think there are that many female basketball teams in IT companies. It wouldn’t have been possible to get enough female participation. That’s why we haven’t opened the tournament for the females yet,” she explains.
However, she quickly adds, “But we are a women’s college, and we definitely hope to include women teams in future. We will have to start our work a lot more earlier though.”
Each team is charged a registration fee of `5,000. The funds from the tournament are used for providing scholarships to the underprivileged students of WCC, belonging to the day batch. Last year, with the participation of six teams from five IT companies, the club raised enough to provide scholarships for 34 students. This year, with an addition of two more teams, it plans to extend its help to a few more.
“Though the college supports many students, we hope to help those who fall under general quota and do not have any financial aid,” says Sarika.
The idea of Game Changers came up a year ago when Sarika thought about mixing her passion for sports and social work. Having heard much about the involvement of IT companies in various CSR activities, she decided to approach them along, with her Yi team. “The other reason why we chose IT companies is that they have a pool of young crowd and most of them have cricket, volleyball and basketball teams,” she says.
But out of the three games, basketball was the best option as it had a definite time span unlike cricket, says Uma, who is a sportsperson herself.
If getting participants was a challenge last year, this year, it was getting sponsorships. “Ten people brought out the event in just 20 days. And since our college cultural festival just got over, getting sponsorship was a major task. When it came to participants, it wasn’t that tough as last year, when players were hesitant to register without knowing enough about the tournament. There was no brand name to it then. Despite that they supported us,” says Sarika.
While CTS emerged winners, bagging a cash prize of `10,000 this season, Amazon and Wipro followed close behind as first and second runner ups.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Naveena Vijayan – Chennai / March 19th, 2014