Kotak Mahindra Bank Collaborates with Inspire Institute of Sport for Kotak’s CSR Project on Sports
New Delhi: In its quest to keep the Indian flag flying high at international sporting competitions, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited (“KMBL” / “Kotak”) today announced its collaboration with the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) to implement Kotak’s CSR Project on Sports.
KMBL-IIS CSR partnership is a joint endeavour to help fulfil the dreams and aspirations of budding wrestling and boxing athletes from across Indian geographies, irrespective of their socioeconomic strata, gender, race or religion.
The idea behind KMBL’s CSR partnership with IIS is to support athletes who have skill but they or their parents may not have requisite means to pay for their coaching and training. KMBL’s CSR Project fully funds the coaching and training of wrestling and boxing athletes.
The ‘Kotak Karma Contact Sports Centre’ is a state-of-the-art training facility at the IIS campus in Bellary, Karnataka, comprising of a 62mx62m column-free indoor training centre that offers world class infrastructure, technical training and sports science support to accomplished as well as promising junior and senior Indian wrestling and boxing athletes.
The holistic development of residential athletes at the Centre covers academic support, nutrition and psychology, leadership and vocational training.
Rohit Rao, Joint President & Group CSR officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited, said, “Kotak’s CSR Project on Sports with IIS provides international-class coaching and training to accomplished as well as promising junior and senior Indian wrestling and boxing athletes. Kotak’s CSR Project is an effort to create tomorrow’s world champions and also includes providing education and life skills programmes to empower the athletes to make them good citizens of India.”
Rushdee Warley, CEO, Inspire Institute of Sport, said, “India has a strong history and tradition of success in Contact Sports, with the country already having won multiple Olympic and World Championship medals in boxing and wrestling. At IIS, we are aiming to provide talented Indian athletes with a world-class daily training environment through a structured program focusing on the holistic development of the athletes. In Kotak Mahindra Bank, we are pleased to find a partner who believes in our vision of nurturing Champions, inside and outside their fields of play.”
Kotak Karma is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) identity of the Kotak Mahindra Group. At Kotak Karma Contact Sports Centre, 100 wrestling and boxing athletes are undergoing training. Of these, 48 athletes are being trained for boxing (19 female, 29 male) and 52 athletes are being trained for wrestling (28 female, 24 male).