In her boxing academy, five time World and Asia champion, Mary Kom is giving wings to young boxers. She is giving back her decent contribution to the boxing sport by making dreams of aspiring boxers true.Two years ago, Mary Kom had launched her boxing academy in Imphal, Manipur. This was started as her dream initiative to empower those boxers in the region who were facing hurdles because of less availability of required facilities. Her husband, Onler Karong told that this was like her dream come true as she was quite interested to give back to boxing sport because this has given her all that fame. We both also want to open more number of academies in Manipur and also in other states of the country. He further added, we hope this one is one of its kinds in India having all sorts of advanced equipments and facilities. It is actually a full-fledged academy for boxing having modern facilities for all aspiring boxers.
Mary Kom’s boxing academy in Imphal West district is set at the foot of Langol hills. This academy is in 3.3 acres land area. It is situated around 10 km away from the center of Imphal, capital of Manipur state. Academy currently offering training to 45 young boxers and there are twenty girls among them.
Her academy is a part of the Mary Kom Regional Boxing Foundation and also, a Sports Authority of India (SAI) Extension Centre. Onler further added, Rahul Bhatnagar, the sports secretary has also visited our academy. He also assured that PM will soon come to inaugurate it. We are hopeful about formal inauguration of this academy in anytime in this year.
Onier, husband of Mary Kom, also requested SAI to add food facility too. Right now, SAI offers a monthly stipend of Rs 600 along with apparel and a coach to all the trainees. Academy is taking care of their food itself.
Talking about challenges, he further said that we are facing challenges from initial days. In the start, there were only eight boxers and one punching bag. As most of these boxers are coming from far-flung areas and poor families, we are not charging any fee from them in their beginner stage. We need to groom them first in the most caring environment. Well, there were challenges. Now, most have been overcome by us. In the start, the biggest challenge was around the existence of this academy. Now, we are having few sponsors and they are also willing to be with us for coming three or more years.
Certainly, Mary Kom is doing a great job by starting this sort of academy. State and Center governments should support her. This can be a valuable contribution in the sport of boxing.  Many star players can come from her initiative to make Indians proud.