 Hello and let's talk about English footballer Marcus Rashford and his fascinating work with meals for school children. The 22-year-old Manchester United footballer launched a campaign called End Child Food Poverty. In June Rashford had led the campaign today's 20 million pounds to provide meals for around 3 million children from disadvantaged backgrounds. His active campaign forced the government in July to extend the free schools meals scheme for children during the holidays. Now Rashford has continued to push this agenda and has won a lot of popular support for this campaign. Meanwhile the UK government set a disgraceful example recently when it voted against a motion to extend the scheme till Easter next year. This led Rashford to launch the campaign where he is advocating an expanded version of the scheme. Now it still remains to be seen how the campaign will pan out but for now it has led to a lot of praise for Rashford as well as serious discussions on the free meal scheme on poverty and on education of children as a whole. We talked in news clicks Leslie Xavier about this scheme as well as the situation in India where there's a similar scheme called the midday meal scheme. We talked about how the scheme functions, the role of sportspersons in promoting social agenda such as these and how do Indian sportspersons fare. Thank you Leslie for joining us. So the story of Marcus Rashford is gaining a lot of attention across the world even Indian newspapers have been reporting it and it's actually a very inspiring story because we have this young footballer actually making in some senses really making change despite the whole system being rigged against what he has been working for. We saw what the parliament did and of course there's a long tradition of conservative governments cutting down on expenditure even vital expenditure in the name of some random policy called austerity. But what Marcus Rashford and the people around him have done is really inspiring. So maybe talk a bit about the footballer himself and the kind of work he's been doing. So Marcus has been of course he has been awarded the MBE for what it's worth whatever the effort but it's clear where it comes from. So Marcus grew up within the system where he benefited and he was from an impoverished family. His mother and he himself when they when they were volunteering at the food bank and recently or during lockdown they kept talking about the past and how they struggled and how a single meal that they would get from school or from the bank or wherever they would that may be a huge difference and of course he has been very vocal about the role that nutrition plays in their child's health. I mean not just molding him to become a footballer or any professional athlete but in general their well-being their growth as future citizens as healthy citizens. So in that regard also that's very important that a child's nutrition at that critical age where he is growing both mentally and physically it's very important. So his entire campaign which was end child food poverty was was was around this and so in July he may he happened to garner enough support and enough attention to get the British government to agree to continue with the with providing the meals for the children through the summer holidays and into the into into fall. But now he wanted to extend that campaign and that's when he started in fact in his online drive he got five hundred thousand people signing the petition urging the British government to continue the support for providing meals for for children from the sections till next March through winter critical period again cold weather holidays and there won't be I mean obviously the schools children won't be going to the schools as such so and pandemic is raging as we speak so it was important but then as as he mentioned during the introduction there turned it down citing various reasons citing the expenditure budgetary constraints whatever but to the surprise of even Rashford more than 100 organizations including city councils and local bodies and private organizations fast food chains charity organizations many many individuals in their own capacity they have all come forward in support of this initiative and they have pledged money pledged resources towards mayor running this campaign and it's it's it's heartening to see that and it's also heartening to see a sports person coming forward and this has triggered a quite a discussion in the UK as well because obviously the ruling party and the people surrounding the the party they have been critical of it and someone has I mean pointed out saying that Rashford should stick to football play football but that's that he has been doing beautifully I mean he is one of the youngest I mean one of the young strikers for Manchester United as well as England and he's doing his job there really well but the point is if you are a footballer or if you are a IT professional or a teacher or any any profession for that matter does it mean that you will just stick to your profession and don't don't get involved in any anything that happens around you in the society no right and why why is it that when a sports person does that and sports person with I mean you you understand the impact that he had now so this we are talking about a sports person with a with a larger reach who could make a difference he made a difference and and the the movement that Rashford started it has I mean it has gotten a global appeal and hopefully that would reflect into similar movements similar understanding and even similar initiative from government it not just the sports person as to as to come up maybe the governments can themselves take cognitions and probably act taking this as an example so that's that's the larger impact that Rashford has and it all comes from the fact that the basic of understanding that what this means to the future of human time so that's that's the basic understanding that I just wish that the leaders had absolutely right and in this context of course India is a parallel in terms of the scheme at least if not sports persons they are midday meals scheme which is of vital importance across the country millions of children actually getting a proper education because of that and it has a much larger social role also and we've seen discussions about it at various points of time many states not doing so well so what do you think about that as well so yeah I'll just take a personal anecdote in this this matter the importance of midday meals when you when you mentioned that I myself was a teacher to start with much before we were doing major and this but yeah this goes much behind it goes to when my mother and my uncles were all all students and this I'm talking about in the 60s uh late late 50s 60s so they studied in a government school in in fort kuchi and six siblings and not very well of family wise so all six of them used to go to school because and they will go with that small vessel because there was midday meal there was kanji that is available there they would be giving it to all the students from the government schools and my mother and my grandmother used to say this story that they would all they won't eat from the school they would all bring it back home and they'll put it in a single pot and then divide among the family and then have that meal and evening of course the father comes back and probably enough money would have been saved to get the evening meal done at home itself so that that's that's that's how they survived childhood that's how they got their education as well because that's a very valid reason to go to school for many and I am in a way it's it's it's saddening in a way to see that 40 years I mean 40 50 60 years down the road the situation is the same in in in a lot of parts of the country where students go to school because there is there is one time meal available for them over there and education is a corollary ideally it should be the other way around but but that's that's the reality we are we are talking about and so the last couple of months there have been many media houses who have done stories around the midday meal and how the lockdown has affected affected the distribution of food for students because obviously schools are not open so where would they get get this so we ourselves had news click with this story a couple of weeks back I leave in fact and we were looking at UP and certain districts in UP especially the backward districts where where the tribal belt and scheduled to describe belt and districts like gonda inside and it's it's with the it's it paints a very bleak picture because ever since lockdown ever since March the kids haven't received any assistance any assistance as far as food is concerned as far as food is concerned so that that is one district and then I happen to also read a couple of reports that came out in economic times and this I mean this was in Maharashtra the kids who were quoted were from Maharashtra and they themselves said again the same picture and they said that we used to go I mean I was reminded of my mother talking about it like and that was like 50 years back I mean 50 years back so they were talking about how it was very important for them to go to school because they used to get this PhD or whatever that is provided over there and at the same time so what has happened is that in March in April the central government they announced that the urge they had a virtual meeting with all the state education ministers and they urged the state governments to take charge of and ensure that this midday will program continues through the lockdown for the for the period of the lockdown so and this is a center slash state project the midday it's shared the expenses are shared but the implementation falls squarely on the state government so and ever since that and I this morning I happened to talk to a couple of old acquaintances of mine from Kerala who are government teachers and one of them in fact happened to used to be in the committee for for midday meals in Ernakulam district and so he was mentioning that after the directive came from the state government about ensuring that the kids get get their ration with their quota packets were made dry ration so grain sugar jaggery and all the stuff that is required for them to make a meal out of it was provided in in fixed packets and they were kept ready at the school and the registered students I mean of course they were contacted via phone numbers or right whatever means that they have even even the network of the IL Kutum which is the local network that they are in that was also used where the lady volunteers and I mean made sure that the information goes to the families that this is there you say you go and collect following of course the social distancing norms or whatever that was prevalent at the time and so that was ensured and that through the three months of lockdown and beyond that as well these were provided for the students and provided and I tried to dig deeper whether this was just around the city or the bigger towns and then the remotest areas did it happen so there's luckily in Kerala the understanding that this this is not a freebie but also a right that is prevalent among the among the population so they know that this is there and it's a right and they need to get it and the school needs to provide it and also I was given an insight into how this this network this midday school project works and within the school capacity itself the management is involved also the PTA is involved the local political leaders are involved in insuring that and this this is across not just government schools but also aid schools who are part of the project so because of this participation of of people within the society and also politicians or social leaders within that area it it has so happened that in Kerala and I'm citing Kerala as an example given the contrasting pictures of other states because it's been implemented in a in a clear cut manner over there and and it's it's just a matter of and what I could perceive is that it's just a matter of will it's and nothing beyond that it's just a matter of exercising that will and exercising a network and exercising a system but the problem is that this system had to be in place before and you can't implement you can't set it in motion during the lockdown after the lockdown you can't set it in motion and that's where that's where Kerala as an advantage and not and we are talking about not just the education system I mean this this system we add a lot of conversations in fact globally also conversations happened about how the Kerala healthcare system is also well evolved to I mean and again that that didn't happen post pandemic that that setup was there and it took a lot of years for it to be very good so that's that's the that's the story of how this in in our country how the mid demil program for kids are and how it's it's it's I mean one can call it a farce asset but at the implementals implementals say it has failed across across regions except for certain certain pockets like very very inconsistently implemented very inconsistently implemented right absolutely right Leslie and finally in this context of course there is a question of bringing these two aspects together there's a question of Indian sportspersons as well so we do know that Indian sports persons are associated with some causes it's not a complete say blank slate there nonetheless it's been a while I think since we've seen say a sportsperson on a social issue move the discourse to a considerable extent so any thoughts or comments on that through the lockdown I'll get into the lockdown part also through the lockdown I happen to speak to some athletes who were involved in a at a local capacity so they would they would help a charity locally or a club which is involved in this really cool or whatever but on a larger scale I don't know what exactly is is the block here but our sportspersons they do understand their reach I mean I'm talking about the elite sportspersons here picketters or the star footballers or even athletes like like olympian at olympic athletes like olympic medalists like saino cindu or whoever has that kind of reach in the government among the power circles among the power corridors among corporate entities and of course the social media so getting rashed word into the picture here and he is just a 22 year old kid if you ask me and it's an example of what he can do he's used football and his football stardom as a platform to do something larger so I'm not saying that our sportspersons should get into the midday meal debate or anything specific over here but they could make an impact that understanding should I mean they should be aware of that understanding that beyond endorsements of projects or the tournament that they're part of or or just retweeting whatever the political over a lot of things just I mean in between that just just use their use their reach for a for causes which could make a difference and it it it would make a huge difference because apart from stars apart from the film stars and apart from the politicians who have sway over people the biggest people who have who have reached among the masses are the sportspersons and imagine every rat koli at the start of the pandemic getting into this discussion saying that guys look at this we have so many million children who are schoolgoing and who are dependent on this midday meal and I happen to understand that it's not happening it's not happening systematically so how can we help them just at that discussion he has a lot of corporate bands associated with him he has reached within the within the political disposition within the within the parties across parties he doesn't have any party allegiance asset which is which is great and so the government as well as the opposition as well as I mean any state for that matter you just he gets involved in that he starts a campaign and that could have probably in the in the in the two three months that fall out it could have ensured that at least some semblance of of a project where kids benefited from it would have happened but but yeah that kind of a bill was was missing missing there and so that's at the start we I mentioned that Rashford's example and the reach the global reach that he has had with this with this campaign goes beyond just feeding the kids this this is actually a conscience quick if you if I can call it that or a call for action for everyone of us and that's where this discussion is also happening within us we are sitting and talking because this I'm answering that call in a way because there is a larger message that was there and larger message applies to all all the countries all of us all of humanity that that happens to be that we should be understanding and empathetic of the needs of the society and this is an important need as well because this addresses the future of of mankind this addresses that healthy citizens are getting grown up and and like I said the direct correlation here is that you get a meal you go to school you study that means you get educated citizens for the future right absolutely right thank you so much Leslie for talking to us on this issue which is ramifications across society and also kind of throws a not very flattering light on Indian sports persons and Indian sport in general as well that's all we have time for today we'll be back tomorrow with more news from the country and the world until then keep watching news click