Magic Bus - About Us

Why Magic Bus

Objectives

The People


		Organisation History Matthew Spacie founded Magic Bus in January 1999 in response to his desire to work with children and young adults through the outdoors and sport. At the time he headed Cox & Kings in India, and used the weekends and evenings to teach rugby and explore the local mountains and beaches with groups of children from Akanksha (a project promoting education amongst slum children) and a group of at-risk children residing and working on Mumbai’s ‘Fashion Street’. Through regular practices, they were taught discipline, self-esteem, hygiene, and the importance of respecting team members, in a healthy competitive environment. For many children burdened by the demands of poverty, the sport sessions provided an outlet to express themselves and release their pent-up energy. He soon saw how the programme was beginning to help children to break out of their situation and realised that this was something he could and should provide to more children.
		Two years later and after working with many children, Matthew left his company and Magic Bus was formalised as a registered non-profit charitable organisation under the umbrella of ‘Childlink India Foundation’. An investment to cover the administration cost for three years from Impact Partners, an Ashoka Fellowship and a donation from the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation to build a development centre, meant that Magic Bus could focus on creating a product that captured all the fun and escapism that the children loved, along with a more pedagogic product which imparts the all important life skills needed for children to build a future.
		The Magic Bus programme itself has dramatically changed since its inception, as we realised that the skills learnt on a weekend camp would be more effective when delivered on a more frequent basis. Thus the camp programme and sports programme have combined to produce the module programme. At first Magic Bus added day programmes to the curriculum and from March 2002 we added weekly sessions for a number of children, who since then have received two hours of sport and games every week with Magic Bus.

		Since its registration in February 2001, Magic Bus has been successful in transforming itself from an individual’s idea into a sustainable organisation. With 3,500 children per annum on its programme, an employee base of over 50 and approximately 240 volunteers, the organisation is playing an important role in developmental work in children’s lives in India.