Media Release
Dubai, Apr 3: Dedication, devotion, time, patience and above all temperament are what one has to inculcate when dealing with Special Needs children. If you have these inner qualities you certainly get that 'Special' feeling and satisfaction at the end of the day.
One such person deserves plaudits for going out of his way to reach out to these Special Needs children when he conducted a cricket clinic for them at the Al Nasr Sports Club, Dubai. Sudhakar Shetty, of Maxtalent, in co-ordination with Saathi and supported by Al Nasr sports Club, brought not only smiles on the faces of these children when he let them have a go with the bat and the ball on the newly-laid strip, but it also helped them (Maxtalent) spot talent in some of the children much to the amazement of even their parents.
They have short listed two of the players to join their regular Max Way training system; the initiative attracted a huge appreciation from the big cheering crowd consisting of parents, institutions heads and volunteers from all walk of life.
It was such a joy to see Sadiq take a long run-up before going in to bowl, much like Australia's Brett Lee and Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar or in batting display by Taha and Rayan playing aggressively in a la style of 'The Wall' Rahul Dravid and even Tendulkar’s classic way.
Sudhakar and his support staff, including the boys his Max Way trainees from Dubai and Sharjah, made these children feel so special by giving each child equal attention and time that it made for a fantastic Friday morning.
Speaking on the sidelines, Sudhakar said, "It all started through a family friend who has a special child. We were discussing cricket when his son got very enthusiastic about it. He (the boy) started talking about boundaries (fours) and sixes, so I thought being a challenged child if he is so passionate about the game then why not do something about it.
“And Maxtalent is one organization which has always been supportive and connected because of our reach and having qualified coaches we thought lets do something for these children. We feel that they deserve it like anyone else. I personally feel we are lucky and we can make them lucky. We (Maxtalent) always wanted to do social activities and charities. Its part of our culture so we took this as an opportunity and said lets get going. The co-ordination of Saathi who have done a marvellous job, too helped make this day possible. As these are special children, they need special treatment. There is a special way how to handle them, said Shetty.
"I myself went for three days to some organizations to get first hand experience of how best it could be done. To be very honest I was nervous at first, because the experience is different of handling these children. But at the end of it we are sportsmen. We have the adaptability, patience, experience and secondly sportsmen in general do not believe in any kind of barriers. I also train youngsters who have even donned national colours, so it was only a matter of getting to special needs children’s level of understanding and the rest is what we all saw. But to be sure that we handle the behavioural characteristic of these special ones, I did undergo a inter-mingling and sharing experience moment at couple of session, so that we could come close if not up to absolute mark, while conducting such an challenging perspectives,” he explained.
"We would like to do it on a regular basis. Whenever an opportunity allows us we will have matches for them. That's the world we also need to take them to as we go along because they have every right as anyone else to get the best. Hence we labeled the outing 'Lets be a little more human',” he added.