How I got introduced to Boccia by Sathish Kumar R

I am a person with Cerebral Palsy using a Automated Wheelchair. On one working day in early 2016 received a call from Mr. Rajiv Rajan and Mr. Harikrishnan from Ektha they were planning to start to develop a game called Boccia. They said “ we are going to conduct a sports camp & you also come on Sunday”. The first question I asked was " will I be able to play? Do I need to come surely?" The reason I asked this was my hand power was not very good. After much hesitation I went on that Sunday to just see what it was all about. Once I went in person and saw how the game works and its design, I started getting interest in it.

I used to try to throw the balls with both my hands but with much efforts I was not able to throw far, then I started using assistive device (ramp) to throw balls. This is where I got confidence and full interest on the game. I felt that I will be able to reach the target. Thereafter in few days, I was able to grab all informations about Boccia. In a few months, myself and another trainer Mr. Sundar used to manage the weekends training camps, I also used to play in it.
As I got more interested in game, I too joined the organizing team of Ektha.  We Ektha the team ourselves had to get proper informations about the game to train others officially.

I along with Mr. Rajiv Rajan and Mr. Dheepakh went to RDT, in Andhra Pradesh to get trained ourself. We got to know many aspects of boccia, playing methods, rules, categorisation, etc.

After we got trained, we started to conduct regular boccia practice camps on Saturday evening at Vidya Sagar. From then on we slowly started to spread the game in and around Chennai.

We conducted camps in other nearby districts. Though I used to play in weekends, I also used to co-ordinate with others to spread & get support from others.

This continued for a while and after few months, in early 2017 we conducted our first boccia tournament. The response from the teams was very good. Then on we started to expand our wings, by giving many trainings at different districts of Tamil Nadu with the support from Beroe Inc.

We were able to get many interested and talented players through this. We have conducted more than 70 camps, few district level tournaments and 2 state level tournaments so far.

I am a part of coordinating team and we are working with players, teams, volunteers and corporate for the development of Boccia in India.

Our altimate goal is to bring more numbers players to this game and build an Indian team for the 2024 Paralympics.