Futsal and a BIG dose of reality
One of our priorities in moving here is to settle our boys as quickly as possible. We can't wait for school to start on August 9th, and until then we have been looking for familiar activities to engage in and meet other kids. Therefore, the boys were delighted to find a Futsal academy near where we are going to be living. For the uninitiated, Futsal is a variant of soccer/football that is played in small courts with 5 players on a team. We went for a tryout in our first week, and joined up straight away. Compared to Sam's soccer fees in the US it was an absolute steal at 7000/Rs per quarter (which works out at $3.00/£2.34 per 90 minute session), especially because that also included a full uniform! It was also a lot of fun and the boys came away from the first practice feeling really positive.
At the weekend, we attended the Saturday session. At this session, other academies come along for practice games/scrimmages. Therefore, there were a lot more kids and a lot more parents. I was really proud of the way that our boys jumped straight in, introduced themselves, and joined teams. Clem and I purposefully sat back and let them figure it out for themselves. They played quite a few games and enjoyed themselves in spite of being the smallest in each of their respective teams. They also seemed to cause quite a stir as the only non-Indians out of about 50 kids. One boy speaking to Sam, pointed specifically to Clem and I in amongst the crowd of watching adults and asked, "Are those your parents?", so I guess we were pretty distinctive as well!
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| Sam |
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| Ethan |
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| Aaron |
As you can see from the photos, it's quite a nice facility. There's a covered seating area for parents, and metal benches to sit and watch alongside the pitches. Hey, there's even a small glass fronted Nike Store! Apart from a few subtle things such as the obligatory mangy dog sleeping in the middle of the courtyard, it could have been somewhere in the US or UK. That is, until a lady walked in, tipped the trash bin onto its side, and began rummaging through with her bare hands.
Nobody else seemed to notice.
Clem and I glanced at her and then away again in awkward confusion. Her pretty fuchsia and sky blue sari was in stark contrast to the pile of rubbish she was picking through. Not wanting to stare or seem insensitive we didn't linger, but with covert glances it was apparent that she was picking certain recyclables out of the trash and collecting them in a large sack. What was strangest of all to me was that nobody blinked an eye, so I could only assume that this was a normal sight.
A bit of research over the weekend has answered some of my questions. Apparently, waste pickers are very common in India, with over 9,000 in Pune alone. (1) What's really staggering is that it's estimated that 80% of waste in India is ‘managed’ not by civic authorities, but by an informal economy of waste pickers – people that salvage recyclable items to sell to scrap dealers. (2) As little as 25 years ago, waste pickers were, in their own words, (3)
"treated like the trash we collect. People would shoo us away like they would dogs. They would cover their noses when they passed us."
While nobody was treating the lady at the Futsal academy like that, it wasn't like she was being thanked for the role she was playing in the economy either. Thankfully, attitudes have slowly been changing over the last couple of decades, and many of the waste pickers are now represented by a trade union called Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat (KKPKP) and have even formed a cooperative of self-employed waste pickers called SWaCH that works in partnership with Pune City authorities. These organizations have increased economic security and enabled social uplift for many waste-pickers in Pune. Their research has also provided a clearer picture of who and what waste pickers do.
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| Waste pickers in Pune (1) |
Waste Picker Profile (1)
- 90% of waste pickers are women
- 50% are under 35 years of age
- 25% are widowed or deserted
- 30% are in women-headed households
- 90% of the women are illiterate
- 8% are sole earners
- almost all waste pickers are from the “untouchable/dalit castes” also referred to as Scheduled Castes.
Conditions of Work for Waste Pickers (1)
- 75% walk for more than five hours – many walk up to 10 km a day with loads of up to 40 kgs
- 50% work 9-12 hours daily with average daily earnings of Rs 60
- all manually handle garbage with bare hands
- 30% have been bitten by dogs
- other common problems include: harassment, insecure earnings, no legal protection, no social security, unfair practices by traders, vulnerability to skin, gastro-intestinal and musculo-skeletal ailments
The most sobering thought of all... while she was busy sorting and salvaging useful materials from the wasteful detritus that I helped create, I was in the Futsal academy office paying for the first 3 months of the boys' soccer lessons.
I handed over a sum of money that was equal to her WHOLE ANNUAL EARNINGS and congratulated myself on how cheap it was compared to the US.
A dose of reality and food for thought.
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