Volunteer Turned Advocate is Paving the Way for Adaptive Sports in India

Gunasekaran lost his father at the age of four, and his mother raised him with the help of his uncle. He pursued his bachelor’s in civil engineering at Sona College of Technology, Salem, and began working with US Technologies in May 2008 in Trivandrum, Kerala. He has always been very active in organizing sporting events, playing cricket, and volunteering, and in 2010 joined Cognizant Technology Solutions, Coimbatore. In this position, he used his skills to give back to his community through volunteering with Cognizant Outreach.

Gunasekaran’s experience volunteering in para-sports events through Cognizant Outreach, along with his understanding that para-sports and persons with disabilities need more support than mere volunteers could provide, inspired him to start the Sittruli Foundation in August 2017. The foundation has introduced wheelchair basketball to the Coimbatore district, Tamilnadu. With solid backing from Ganga Hospitals and Cognizant Outreach team, they have established a dedicated basketball court for the training at Ganga Spinal Rehabilitation Center in Coimbatore. In addition, they have procured 15 sports wheelchairs through various noble sources and in collaboration with Motivation India. Since 2018, they have organized three state-level tournaments, one South Indian Zonal Tournament, and an exhibition inter-state tournament at Varanasi. Additionally, they organize exhibition para-sport events in educational institutions to spread awareness in the budding minds of our society.

With consistent efforts, Ganga Hospital has now set up the initial meeting to establish the first-ever dedicated disability/adaptive sports academy, rehab, and research center in Coimbatore. The land has been identified, and the next level of planning is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2023.

Gunasekaran’s mission is to establish disability/adaptive sports academies, which will act as centers of excellence, providing high-performance and grassroots-level training. These centers will also create awareness and pursue research on disability sports in India and empower persons with disabilities. By 2027, he would like to establish one such center in Tamilnadu and, before 2035, create similar centers in each of the 28 states in India. Gunasekaran is married to his wife, Malathi.T, and they have had two children.