“Mobile to Sports: Play at Home” campaign was launched by Sports Authority of Gujarat in the year 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage sportspersons to continue with their sports skill training and fitness programs even during COVID-19 pandemic when sports complexes were closed. Various sports skill training, short videos of different videos were developed in-house by coaches of Sports A
uthority of Gujarat which was shared with thousands and thousands of sportspersons by using the free access platform of Facebook and YouTube channel. Everyday new videos explaining new sports skills techniques and various fitness programs (which can be practised staying at home) are uploaded on the Facebook and YouTube channel. Sportspersons are encouraged to watch these videos carefully and practise at home to maintain their sports skills and to keep themselves fit for the future Sports Competitions. In this way “Mobile to Sports: Play at Home” campaign is helping thousands of sportspersons to maintain their sports skills and keep themselves fit during the COVID-19 pandemic although the sports complexes were closed during the pandemic.
“Mobile to Sports: Play at Home” campaign also helped to universalize the access of sports and encouraging everyone to play sports at home every day so that sports becomes a habit. As a consequence, more and more youth are being attracted towards Sports, Yoga, Physical Activities, leaving behind the routine of spending too much time on mobile. It is a well known fact that grown-up children and youth are spending lot of their valuable time on non-useful activities on their mobile phones (such as mobile games etc.). As a consequence of spending too much unproductive time on mobile, use of mobile is becoming an addiction especially among the youth. Health authorities around the world have warned about the health problems associated with excessive use of mobile phones, such as headaches, insomnia, problems in the brain, blurred vision, eye fatigue, burning and itching sensation to the eyes, neck pain and even psychological problems.
“Mobile to Sports” campaign is playing a vital role to convince people particularly the young generations to spend less time on mobile phones and spend at least some time during the day for sports. The different “Play at Home” techniques developed for various sports by Sports Authority of Gujarat’s coaches have made playing a game at home interesting. Interesting “Play at Home” short videos of various types for sports, yoga and exercises are being made available everyday to the users of “Mobile to Sports” page and You Tube Channel. This project has been completely developed in-house, free of cost and the users are getting free access to the contents of “Mobile to Sports” posted on the Facebook and You Tube Channel. In this way, this campaign is also trying to de-addict people from excessive usage of mobile phone has been launched for the first time in any country in the world.
“Mobile to Sports: Play at Home” is has emerged as a unique project because:
(1) It encouraged sportspersons to continue with their sports skill training during COVID-19 pandemic. (2) It increased the universal access of sports by encouraging people to play at home
(3) It is helping to reduce the excessive usage of mobile phones byattracting more people to sports through interesting play at home techniques. Till 26 February 2021,pages of “Mobile to Sports” reached 5.98 lakh people from 58 countries and our You Tube Channel has 28164 subscribers and has been seen by more than 3.35 lakh people. Mobile to Sports Initiative has been appreciated by many International Sportspersons such as Padmashree Dhanraj Pillai (Olympic HockeyPlayer), Mr Jonty Rhodes (South African Cricketer), Mr Adille Sumariwalla (President, All India AthleticsFederation), Ms Ankita Raina (India Women’s Tennis Number One), Mr. Harmit Desai (Asian Games Gold Medallist), Mr Robin Uthappa (India International Cricketer), ChessGrand Master Mr. Evgeny Vladimirov (Kazikisthan). During this corona pandemic “Mobile to Sports: Play at Home” campaign achieves even greater significance and every State in India and every Country in the World should start such a campaign to Build a Healthy Nation and a Healthy World: that is the need of the hour!
