This Article is From Sep 18, 2015

Why These Girls Want to Put Their Village on the World Map

Situated just outside Ranchi, the village Hutup is the base for an NGO, Yuwa that trains over 200 girls not only in football, but in English and Math as well.

Ranchi, Jharkhand: 14-year-old Kusum Kumari is busy clicking photos of her village in Jharkhand, which the ace footballer plans to put up on the Wikipedia page for Hutup, the village made famous by its girl footballers.

In 2013, the girls from Hutup played two football tournaments in Spain, where they bagged one bronze medal, and were invited last year to participate in a major tournament in the US.

But now, these girls say their village needs fame too. A non-profit organisation, Yuwa is organising computer classes to help them create a Wikipedia page.

"We have put Hutup on Wikipedia, so that people can come and see us, visit us. We want that more people should know about us", says Kusum, whose parents are marginal farmers. Her elder brother is a driver in Ranchi, and sister is in college.

Situated just outside Ranchi, the village is the base for the NGO, Yuwa that trains over 200 girls not only in football, but in English and Math as well. These girls between the ages of 13 and 17 years are a stark contrast in a state with gender inequality, and high school dropout rate for girls.

The story began in 2008, when an American, Franz Gastler came to Jharkhand on a short stint with an NGO. But he decided to stay on after seeing the girls' enthusiasm for football, and now computers.

He founded the NGO, Yuwa, which aims to combat child marriage and human trafficking by involving the girls in playing football. Jharkhand has one of India's highest human trafficking rates, particularly of young girls.

Mr Gastler told NDTV, "They are starting to take pride in where they are coming from. It's important that they are putting their village on the map literally. They are also putting their map on google street view and that's going to be coming up soon."
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