Mumbai Programme
In 1999, Magic Bus operations started in Mumbai and provided the learning ground for development of its Sport for Development curriculum. The Mumbai City Programme – apart from being the seat of Magic Bus S4D intelligence and the birthplace of the Graduation Programme – is intertwined with a number of other elements that have been come along with the journey aboard Magic Bus. Under the age-and-need-based Graduation Programme, Magic Bus would phase in for interventions at a certain age, and phase out after delivery. Broadly, the programme is divided into stages, each representing defined objectives and a certain discovery of self by the child engaged:
- Explorer (7-9 years): The child becomes aware of him/herself (physically, mentally, emotionally and creatively), environment, his/her role within the environment, and discovers the fun in learning about self.
- Challenger (10-14 years): The child understands him/herself in context of the world around, develops a sense of responsibility towards him/herself and the environment, and learns to experience joy and a sense of achievement. The child understands internal and external challenges, and becomes aware of inherent resilience to face them.
- Voyager (15 and beyond): The child/youth makes meaningful choice, becomes responsible for his/her growth and moves towards self-reliance, develops a sense of self-belief and positivism, understands the importance of having a direction and explore strategies to accomplish goals, and understands his/her role as an individual in order to positively contribute to the society.
Through Connect, Magic Bus empowers youth in the Voyager stage to realize their full potential and make choices necessary to embark upon a meaningful journey in life.
- Peer Leader Programme: Magic Bus works to create a broader community impact through youths demonstrating leadership potential within the programme, enabling them to be the change makers of tomorrow. The Peer Leader Training Programme is for furthering competencies that youth have already developed via participation in Magic Bus programmes, and to simultaneously improve their confidence and self-esteem whilst developing leadership and mentoring skills in them. The Peer Leaders then actively engage with their own communities and play a vital role in organically broadening the scope and reach of the Magic Bus programme. Youth who pass into the last stage of our graduation programme as Voyagers, will have the opportunity to join our Sports Peers or Community Peers programmes.
- Magic Bus Football Team (MBFT): Magic Bus created a specialised team about 4 years ago that received support from the Indian Advisory Partners in its early days. The MBFT has gone on to move up the MDFA League and has been sponsored by Barclays. MBFT comes across – for children and youth from all Magic Bus programmes – as an opportunity to take part in competitive sport. The selected children and youth receive additional practice and coaching sessions over and above their Magic Bus session.
The Barclays MBFT Senior Team now competes in the 2nd Division of the MDFA. This season, they have seen considerable success, winning a number of tournaments and also taken home a Fair Play award recently. This year, the four junior teams too, were sponsored by IAP and FIFA.
- Adventurer Programme: The Adventurer Programmer gives children a one-time exposure to Magic Bus. The programme includes children who cannot make a longer term commitment to join our structured graduation programme. These are children from certain sections of the communities in which we work, who, despite feeling intense need for our programmes, are unable to commit to more than one or two stand-alone days –girls rescued from various forms of child labour, children of seasonal labourers, children with life-threatening illnesses, tribal children, railway or street children, children from rehabilitation centres and differently-abled children – that is, children who have embarked on some of life’s most challenging journeys since a young age, yet they still face obstacles with an adventurous spirit. The aim of the Adventurers programme is to provide these children with a bank of positive memories they can draw on when they face their day-to-day challenges.
The Mumbai programme continues to act as the laboratory where we test our entire hypothesis and refine our approach before we transpose them across the country.
Launched in 2008, see how the
National Programme is reaching out across the country.
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