India’s favourite cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar, is a product of Mumbai’s maidan culture. It’s where he had his first brush with competitive cricket, and a lifelong dream. He even relocated to his aunt’s house, situated near an iconic city sports field, to get maximum practice hours out of his days. He likens Mumbai’s playgrounds to a nurturing ecosystem in which sports lovers thrive if they submit to it.

Indeed, sports fields can be incubating grounds of world-class sporting talent, and Sachin would like every child to have access to this crucial facility. But ground reality indicates that young talent, across different parts of the city, do not have access to fully-functional playgrounds, let alone a well-oiled machinery that has perfected the process of churning out sports stars. The barriers are many. Some, such as cultural biases, can be fought over time. But others, such as natural lighting, are a force of nature that can’t be budged at all. To encourage sports participation, children, occupied with studies and homework during the day, require access to playgrounds even after the sun sets. But because of inadequate lighting in playgrounds, the option of playing and practicing their skills is unavailable at dusk.

This children’s day, Sachin has joined hands with DBS Bank to look for a solution. DBS Bank has a history of using its services to help individuals and communities realise their dreams and solve long-standing problems. Some of its cases have been depicted in the web series, Sparks, which follows a motley crew of bankers at DBS as they work on various community issues. The cricketer even makes a guest appearance in the later episodes of the series in a fictionalised depiction of his ambition to light up children’s lives, which is now becoming a reality.

DBS Bank and Sachin Tendulkar have a joint mission to light-up the lives of the next generation of our country. They have embarked on this journey to light-up a ground at Mumbra (located around 17 km from Mumbai). Pride of its residents for its jugaad culture, the kids of Mumbra now associate the town with another phenomenon — sports. The chosen field will benefit over 6000 students from 12 schools. Watch the video below and pledge your support to change the lives of Mumbra’s children.

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DBS Bank’s community-building efforts are a result of its ‘Live more, bank less’ ethos, which aims to make banking joyful, smart and effortless so that DBS customers can get more out of life.

This article was produced by the Scroll marketing team on behalf of DBS and not by the Scroll editorial team.