The Power of One Conversation

Anyone who knows me well also knows that I enjoy telling people about those things which touch, move or inspire me.  My Angels Academy – a beautifully effective and impactful football program run for slum kids in Vikaspuri (West Delhi) is certainly something which touches me, moves me AND inspires me.  Any reader of this blog would know how much I love this place as I’ve written about my wonderful experiences visiting the slum many times in the past.

Anyway, the other day I was sitting at the Budweiser 6v6 Cup Regional event in Delhi enjoying a Budweiser and watching some of the matches with my friends at Total Football – a media group which promotes Indian football through webisodes.  While soaking up the sun and amateur, but exciting, football matches, I felt compelled to tell Total Football’s founder, Akshay, all about how great My Angels Academy is. It just so happened that he had been searching for a development program like this to showcase the transformative powers of football to his viewers, but hadn’t had much luck in identifying the right orphanage or NGO.

After only that one conversation, he agreed to accompany me the next day to the Academy to meet the kids and their extraordinary leader Sylvester Peter.  Akshay was blown away by his experience and returned to Vikaspuri with his team and film equipment to do a piece on the Academy. Here is a link to the short piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahC8TiJ4BR0

As the time of this blog posting, over 1300 people have watched the 15 minute video. The incredible thing is that before Total Football did this story, no more than 50 people had probably visited the slum in Vikaspuri long enough to experience the magic. Now just because of one conversation and the compassion of a few young men at Total Football, thousands of people will come to know the Angels and their heartwarming story. 


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