Virender Sehwag's 'Umeed India' ready to empower Indian athletes

Popular TV show ‘Umeed India’ which is hosted by former Indian international Virender Sehwag, is ready to take a massive step for the growth of athletes. The TV series is on process to launch a crowdfunding initiative which will boost the empowerment of athletes.The main reason behind launching the show by the EPIC Channel was to highlight the extraordinary chronicles of 13 sportspersons who are gearing up for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The show concentrates on tracking the lives of Sakshi Malik, swimmer Suyash Jadhav, shot put player O.P. Karhana, sprinter Dutee Chand, judo talent Avtar Singh and wrestler Vinesh Phogat, among others. The show does not want to restrict themselves to just narrating their stories and hence they have opted for a crowdfunding initiative to empower these athletes. They have roped in Impact Guru as a partner, a company which raises money from a large number of people and ensures the empowerment of individuals, NGOs and social enterprises.

What Sehwag said:

Speaking on the issue, Virender Sehwag said “I hope through the show we can bring to light an athlete’s daily struggles and the facilities they are offered and the dearth of it. While shooting, what I also noticed was that these athletes are given a diet stipend of Rs 600, which is appalling because they are training for Olympics and need much more support than what they are being offered,”

“Umeed India’ is an effort to bring fans, communities and even the corporate world together to empower the athletes and even help raise funds so that they can achieve their goals,” added the destructive opener.

Talking about the wonderful initiative ,Akul Tripathi, Programming Head, EPIC Channel, said “As a show, ‘Umeed India’ aims to bring to light the struggles and triumphs of our sportspersons. They are the pride of our country and it is unfortunate that, at times, some very basic necessities are not made available to them at the correct time. The crowdfunding campaign in association with Impact Guru.com is our attempt at connecting the people of the country directly with their sporting talent.”

Piyush Jain, who is the Co-founder and Trustee of Impact Guru mentioned how the campaign will help this talented athletes. “Crowdfunding is a powerful tool for change. If we, as a country of 1.3 billion people, stand with our athletes and support them, it will motivate them even more to bring home gold medals in the next Olympics.” said Jain.