Society for Development Activities (Project KHEL)

Society for Development Activities (Project KHEL) works towards empowering adolescents, paving the way to a more equal and inclusive society. Project KHEL is an acronym for Kids Holistic Education and Life Skills, and is an initiative of the Society for Development Activities. The NGO uses the language of play to impart the unlearnt and speak what is unsaid.

It imparts life skills to transform adolescents into informed and gender sensitive citizens, leaders in their communities, and widen the scope of their future opportunities. Harnessing the power of play, it creates safe play spaces and implements holistic, interactive, and experiential learning methods through sports, story-telling, theatre, crafts, dance and games.

Core Programs:

Made in Maidaan literally means building character on the playground. It is equipped with personal, social and cognitive skills towards adolescents that has changed their lives for the better. The transferable skills that the beneficiaries learn here help them aspire for better and previously unthinkable opportunities. To complement these efforts, the NGO also facilitates theme-based workshops to inform adolescents about the crucial issues they face such as personal hygiene, civic-responsibility, peer pressure and tobacco and substance abuse. It has a rigorous, theme-based curriculum which facilitators then follow and conduct the sessions with each group.

Ultimate Frisbee: At present, this sport is played across 80 countries. Frisbee is a self-officiated mixed gender sport where different genders play together on the same line. In many ways the ideal sport to achieve developmental goals with adolescents due to its mixed gender format and focus on fair play and spirit. The NGO was already using the concept of Ultimate to run self-officiated games on Kho Kho, Pitthu and Rumaal Kabaddi and later got introduced to Frisbee. Project KHEL has coaching chapters for training children, resulting in adolescents participating at renowned competitions like Ashoka Ultimate Championship (2016, 2017), Ahmedabad Ultimate Open 2018, Lucknow Ultimate Open 2017, Stephens Open 2018 and as part of the National Championship Series 2019.

Khelshaala: During the pandemic, many children were dropped out of education in their race to keep up with online education system. The NGO began a literacy programme towards bringing functional literacy to out-of-school children. It has created a 150-hour curriculum to teach children the subjects like Hindi, English and Maths.