About OSCAR

How was Oscar started?

Ashok Rathod grew up seeing a lot of his school mates dropping out of school from class 4th; to get addicted to drugs and then being married off at an early age in the hopes of leaving bad hab-its. Explaining this process Ashok says, “We used to study in a municipal where passing the first to fourth standard was so easy; there was no pressure at all so nobody would ever concentrate on studies. In the fifth standard suddenly English was introduced and all of us got scared and eve-rybody was expected to score the marks for passing the examination.

At that time, the access to easy cash by selling fish was more attractive. My friends and their family were also very happy and proud with the cash inflow, and that their children were earning at such a young age. As a result, due to this easy cash most of them got addicted to drugs. So then, to help them be more responsible and committed; parents would get them married young.” To see his friends fall prey to drugs and gambling pained Ashok, then a 21 year old boy. Oscar – Organisation for Social Change, Awareness and Responsibility was born in 2006, with the thought of undoing this cycle of dropouts- easy cash – gambling- early marriage.

About Ashok

At one point of time Ashok also thought of discontinuing his education, to take up a job. But his father, a fisherman constant persuasion and motivation encouraged Ashok to continue his edu-cation till class twelve.

During the course of his education Ashok started volunteering for a NGO – Doorstep School (DSS), which conducted different activities for low socio-economic background children. Through DSS Ashok got introduced to Magicbus which works on child development through sports; where he played rugby for five years. After his studies, he joined Magic Bus as staff in June 2006 and began working as a youth mentor where he taught football and other sports for the development of community youths.