Twelve years back in 1999 when British citizen Matthew Spacie landed in Mumbai as the CEO of Cox and Kings, he never would have thought that a game of rugby on local grounds would later give rise to his ambitious project called the ‘Magic Bus’. This non-profit organisation which was born among local street kids of Mumbai has changed the lives of over 20,000 kids across the nation so far, and aims to reach out to a million children by 2014.
Speaking about the journey of Magic Bus, Matthew informs, “In 1999 while playing rugby with street kids I realised that the discipline and training of this game taught children the importance of respecting others and gave them a sense of purpose. It was a bright idea to introduce sports in the lives of street kids because they learnt important values of life through this exercise and later on passed it on to other children in their respective communities. Our mission is to empower children, youth and communities in areas of education, gender, health, leadership and livelihood using sport for development. We called it the ‘Magic Bus’ project because the kids used to go in a bus to play games. The bus transported them to a magical place where they developed a skill through the medium of sports.”
The Magic Bus has national and international collaborations and works in partnership with many schools to create more opportunities for these kids. Matthew mentions that the NGO usually takes up children between the age group of seven to 18 and trains them under a designed educational curriculum. He says, “We work closely with different communities and specially encourage young underprivileged girls to take up a sport, so that they can become more fearless. A lot of people who were a part of this programme are now self-sufficient and they have started similar projects in their neighbourhood, so the impact is growing each day. We have over 600 people currently who work as volunteers and trainers at various levels in the country.”
Matthew informs that the NGO also helps the kids learn football, cricket and other popular sports. He adds, “In Delhi we have the largest number of children who are benefiting under this project. The Premier League is one of our biggest supporters, and apart from this we have cricketers and football players who regularly contribute to this NGO. Our vision is to help at least one million kids from India by 2014, and so I believe let’s ‘kick for change’.”