New Delhi, Oct 09, 2026: The children of the people who build our cities, grow our food and keep communities running will take centre stage this Sunday as Mobile Creches hosts its Annual Sports Meet – “Kheltey Raho, Khiltey Raho” at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex, New Delhi.
Around 1,200 children from 50 Mobile Creches centres will participate in the sporting event on October 11, turning the track into a field of running, cheering, competing and celebration. The event will be joined by Pooja Dhanda, Indian wrestler, 2018 Commonwealth Games silver medallist and 2019 Arjuna Award recipient, as the Chief Guest. The event will also include an award distribution ceremony.
For Mobile Creches, the sports meet is more than a sporting event. It reflects a larger belief that every child deserves the right to play, learn, grow and be celebrated — irrespective of where their parents work or where their family lives.
Across India, construction workers raise buildings and infrastructure, families working in brick kilns make the bricks that shape our cities, and tea garden workers help put tea on tables across the country. Their children often grow up alongside these workplaces, with families moving in search of work or living in communities where access to quality childcare and early learning can be limited.
For more than five decades, Mobile Creches has worked to address this gap by taking childcare to where families live and work.
Founded in 1969, the organisation runs creches and learning centres across construction sites, urban settlements, brick kilns, tea gardens and rural and tribal communities, providing daycare, early learning, nutrition and health support close to children’s homes and their parents’ workplaces.
The organisation currently works across 17 states through more than 5,000 childcare centres and has reached over one million children, while training more than 20,000 care workers who form the backbone of its early childhood programmes.
From a creche to the sports field
The Annual Sports Meet brings this everyday work into focus.
At Mobile Creches centres, play is treated not as a reward, but as an essential part of childhood. Through play and early learning, children develop physical strength, confidence, social skills and a sense of belonging.
“Play is not a reward for children who have everything. It is how every child learns to trust, to try and to belong, For children from the communities we work with, this sports meet is the day the country turns around and says: we see you.” said Sumita Mishra, CEO, Mobile Creches.
The sports meet is an opportunity to see that belief in action — children lining up at the starting line, running their races, cheering for friends, experiencing the excitement of competition and celebrating each other’s achievements.
The programme will begin with an Indian Map formation and National Anthem, followed by a Torch Lighting Ceremony. Sporting activities will then take place across the track, with children participating age-wise.
Pooja Dhanda, whose own journey in wrestling has taken her to the international sporting arena, will join the children as Chief Guest. Her presence will add another dimension to the day’s message — that talent can come from every corner, and opportunity can help it find its field.
A celebration of the circle around every child
Mobile Creches believes that no child grows alone. Around every child is a circle of care — parents and families, the didis and care workers at the creches, communities, employers and developers who enable childcare spaces at worksites, and partners who support the organisation’s work.
The Annual Sports Meet brings this circle together on one field.
For one day, the children of families who spend their days building, growing and powering the country will not be on the sidelines. They will take the field, compete, cheer, laugh and be applauded.
And that, for Mobile Creches, is the spirit of “Kheltey Raho, Khiltey Raho” — because every child deserves the chance to play, compete and be cheered.
