Former athlete P.T Usha today said her school of athletics is ready to tap various crowdfunding platforms to enable promising young athletes.
For now, Usha said, she has tied up with Milaap.org, a crowdfunding platform, and has raised Rs 3.3 lakh out of the four campaigns her school had conducted for her athletes.
“We have raised ₹3.3 lakh through crowdfunding platform, Milaap.org, to enable promising young athletes. My school has been raising funds on Milaap for over a year,” she said.
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Ms. Usha said her school has the capacity to train 40 promising athletes but is able to train only 19 due to lack of funds.
The school spends ₹60 lakh on budding athletes every year, she said and added that the money is sourced from individual donors, institutions and government.
“The government spends mostly on building infrastructure including sprinting tracks,” she said.
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Abhita and Jessy have been major beneficiaries on the Milaap platform, with the former raising over ₹1 lakh for her training. Jessy raised Rs 40,000, she said.
Abhita was declared the best girl athlete in the country in the senior girl’s category at the National Schools’ Athletics Championships in Pune.
She had also bagged bronze medal in the Commonwealth Youth games, held at Samoa near New Zealand.
“With an aim to participate in and win at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, she practises at least seven hours a day, besides pursuing her studies at my school,” Usha said.
Jessy is the daughter of a widowed mother who works as a daily wage worker and her first international participation was in the South Asia Federation Games 2013 at Ranchi, where she won a gold medal setting the new meet record in the 800m event.
She also represented India in the IAAF World Junior Athletics Championships held at Eugene in July 2014 and also, in the Asian Junior Athletics Championships at Taipei in 2016.
Milaap CEO Mayukh Choudhury said athletes receiving training under Ms. Usha can achieve a lot if they get the right resources.