Its not just about girls playing football for the first time, its about power (from an Indigenous village)

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Its a story of girls not being allowed to play football to being supported to play in a tournament.

Baseline by Suchana in 2024 in Kewdaha Santhal indigenous village in West Bengal, India, showd that male village elders council called Manjhiharam played a key role in governance. Women and girls had almost no role in any of it.

2025 Then the Suchana team started witih SALT conversations with the girls, and the girls started realizing their own strength. Around the same time, the Manjiharam team SALT conversations felt they needed to do something for their village, particularly for the youth. They were worried the boys were just roaming around and wasting time on their phones instead of doing something useful. So they put in 12000 rupees from their pension and organized a football tournmanet for the youth, inviting youth from 15 other villages. 

In January 2026, when I visited the village and asked their common dream (which Suchana had earlier facilitated) the girls shared with me that they want to to play football. They see the boys playing, but their parents and the village elders do not allow them to play or even practice. So  the very next day. we invited the Manjiharam, and we also invited the boys. Everyone shared their dream for the village. I encouraged the girls to present their dream to the Manjiharam, and the girls, very confidently, along with other things, shared that they have a dream to play football, and asked why, as girls, they are not allowed to play where the boys play. 

The reaction from the Manjihara was very pleasant. They said they will definitely support the girls in football.

10th July 2026, Suchana NGO with village Kewdaha organized a big village event  where four other villages joined. The Manjiharam supported the formation of first girls football team in the village.  the girls didn't just form the team, they played in the tournament.

My personal conclusion

• The change here did not come from an external gender program, it came from engagement and participation that let the girls define what mattered to them . What they found was power within, a growing sense of their own worth and voice through the SALT conversations. What followed with the Manjiharam was power with, a shift from elders deciding for the community to elders deciding alongside it, including the girls and the boys in that process rather than around them. 
• I see it as a paradigm shift that the girls whose voices had been left out of decision making, are placed at the centre. This example illuminates clearly the difference between authority that concedes space and authority that is resisted. It is central to how lasting change tends to happen in indigenous communities, where legitimacy still runs through elders.
• This brings in the inter-generational angle of older persons' role. The relational aspect is that the Manjiharam did not concede authority because they were pressured into it, but because the relationship between elders, boys, and girls was rebuilt through dialogue and shared dream.
• Men  worked as allies rather than Suchana treating them only as the problem

Photo courtesy- Bappa Das and Lebu