IT might have been Whitney Houston who said it best – “I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.” The choice to invest in the future of a child is a worthwhile effort that has a positive and long-lasting ripple effect in the lives of families, neighborhoods and entire communities. It is children who will inherit the future. For Magic Bus, securing the future meant spending adequate time and resources building up the lives of children through education, recreational activities and skill-building to give children healthier childhoods and more promising opportunities to improve their livelihoods in the future.
This is what Magic Bus India Foundation has believed for the past 25 years since it first started investing in the lives of street children in Mumbai through sports and fun activities that gave these children a brief respite from their often harsh and difficult lives. The thinking was, giving these children a glimpse into happy and enjoyable childhoods will give them opportunities to feel like a part of a group or a team and this in turn will give them the impetus to respond to the organization’s effort to improve their future prospects and break the cycle of poverty in their lives. Magic Bus has gone on to impact the lives of children and transform millions of futures.
How Magic Bus started at a rugby game in 1999
It was on a sunny day at the Bombay Gymkhana in 1999 when Matthew Spacie, the COO of popular travel company Cox & Kings, was playing a game of rugby. This was a sport he knew well since he played for the Indian national team and often spent time playing at the Bombay Gymkhana. It was on one of these days that he noticed a group of street children watching the game with great interest. He stopped, invited them to join him and began teaching the boys the rules of the game. This became a habit for the boys and soon, Matthew started coaching the boys as a team. Upon months of training, the boys started undergoing a remarkable transformation.
The boys lived in the slum settlements nearby and Matthew’s regular rugby coaching sessions started encouraging them to return to school, get trained in vocational skills and even started becoming mentors to the younger children in the slum settlements. This incredible change in the behavior of these young people sparked something in Matthew’s mind. If a few months of sports coaching could awaken something in their minds and behavior to the point of impacting their futures, this could be a model that could potentially equip and empower other children as well. This was how Magic Bus started after a chance encounter in 1999.
Getting on the “magic bus”
Matthew Spacie started organizing weekend activity camps at ideal locations for children such as the beaches and hills in the Mumbai area. To get there, Matthew would arrange a bus that the children would get on and in their excitement, the children started calling it their “magic bus”. The name stuck and Magic Bus India Foundation started its long journey to give children the chance to engage in fun activities, learn important skills and be part of a team. Matthew quit his job with Cox & Kings and committed himself full time to Magic Bus and then included football, cricket and kabbadi to the repertoire of sports coaching for the children.
Why do these children need Magic Bus?
In poor and underprivileged slum areas and villages, children are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and dangers such as child marriage, child labor and even child trafficking. Because these disadvantaged children lack access to education and other opportunities to improve their futures, they are caught in a dangerous cycle of poverty without the means to escape from their miserable circumstances. Once these children grow into young adults, there is a high probability that their own children will face the same problems. This is why the interventions of Magic Bus are crucial and life-changing for these children and their families.
Education is Magic Bus’s answer
The most effective way to empower children and ensure that the assistance provided to them is sustainable, is to invest in their education. We visited Magic Bus India Foundation and spoke to Asha Bisi, who is the Cluster Manager and she shed light on this fact. “It is only through education that things can change,” she shares. Asha Bisi illustrates this through an incident that happened to a girl in 7th grade. The girl wanted to study but her parents were forcing her to get married. Magic Bus then rallied the women of the village and encouraged them to stop the wedding. The wedding was stopped and the girl was able to continue her education.
Life skills and livelihood programs
Magic Bus realized that pairing life skills with formal education enhances student learning, improves attendance and refines behavior and personal characteristics that are needed to excel well into the future. The organization’s life skills program focuses on 11 essential life skills: problem solving, decision making, self management, creativity, empathy, assertiveness, negotiation, collaboration, communication, self awareness and adaptability. Its livelihood program focuses on employability skills and this training has seen its students get placed in the retail, e-commerce, IT, ITES, QSR, BFSI and logistics sectors.
Support Magic Bus India Foundation
When you support Magic Bus India Foundation, you help underprivileged children living in poor and disadvantaged communities get access to the education, life skills and vocational skills needed to be empowered and excel in the future. To support Magic Bus India Foundation:
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Shirley has been in the development sector for over 10 years and is passionate about making a change in the world around her, including adopting dogs and writing to make a difference.
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