From broken homes to Medal Mats

When there is no one at home, you learn to stand on your own… for me, sport became my family, my shelter, my home," says 13-year-old Lileshwari Vadde, her voice calm, her resolve far stronger than her frail body often allows.At a tribal girls' shelter home in Bastar's Kondagaon district, stories like hers are no longer rare. They are turning into a quiet pattern of loss, resilience and transformation, driven not by sympathy, but by sport.Inside the Baal Kalyan Parishad Balika Grah, childhoods scarred by abandonment, poverty and silence are being rebuilt through mats, medals and targets. For many of the girls here, sport is no longer just an activity. It has become identity, discipline and a reason to dream.Lileshwari embodies this shift. Orphaned young and battling a sickling condition, she balances medication with rigorous judo training. A Class 7 student, she has already played three national-level events and is set to join SAI Bhopal after earning a Khelo India selection.Her story mirrors many others. Five girls from the shelter are now training at SAI centres, while three have been selected under Khelo India. Ranjeeta and Raveena, both sisters, whose childhood slipped into hardship after their mother remarried. They stayed with grandparents, grazed cattle and slowly drifted away from school. Though not technically orphaned, their lives had become uncertain enough for childhood to begin disappearing.Admission to the shelter was not easy because their mother was alive. But after repeated efforts, they entered the ashram in 2021. Since then, their paths have changed dramatically.Ranjeeta, now nearing 18, is training in judo at SAI Bhopal. Raveena, 14, has taken up archery and is training in Bilaspur. Both carry the same quiet determination to move beyond poverty and circumstance.For Ranjeeta, one of the earliest moments of wonder came when she travelled to Bhilai for a competition and saw a train for the first time. She returned talking not just about its speed, but with the excitement of someone who had glimpsed a world larger than her village.Shelter home superintendent Mani Sharma says most girls arrive with little exposure and even less confidence."They come here with no idea what sport even means," she told TOI. "Some are withdrawn, some angry, some just silent. We first work on their mindset. Slowly they start playing, then they begin liking it, and then they become serious."Of the 19 girls in the shelter, 16 are engaged in sports, with 12 competing at national level this year. Backed by structured coaching from the district administration, the initiative is quietly transforming lives—proving that on these mats, resilience is the real victory.