ICC Cricket for Good & UNICEF launch Team Swachh clinics in partnership with BCCI
Building up to the ICC World T20 in India, the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket for Good and UNICEF in partnership with BCCI launched the Team Swachh clinics during the ICC WT20 Host City Tour on Thursday at the iconic Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in New Delhi.
Team Swachh is an integrated nationwide initiative that aims to build a social movement for sanitation and toilet use thereby leading to an open-defecation-free India. This visionary collaboration between ICC and UNICEF aims to raise awareness about challenges faced by the most disadvantaged children and focuses on improving sanitation. The ICC WT20 is the launch platform to advocate for children, leveraging the reach and popularity of cricket in India.
The ICC WT20 Men’s and Women’s trophies travelled on the Nissan Trophy Tour float through the streets of national capital New Delhi. Exhilarated fans got the opportunity to photograph themselves with the two trophies as well.
A specially designed double-decker bus carried the children from a local NGO named Butterflies and two members from the Indian cricket team – Yuvraj Singh and Pawan Negi. The players interacted with the fans as the cavalcade made its way to photograph themselves with the ICC Trophies.
Playing cricket-based games with the children along with advocating the use of toilets, Singh and Negi engaged with the children, while also sharing cricketing tips and discussing the importance of hygiene and sanitation in the specially designed Team Swachh WASH clinic set up inside the Feroz Shah Kotla.
Calling the initiative a ‘social movement for sanitation’, Ms. Caroline Den Dulk, Chief of Communication, UNICEF India said, “The idea of team and team play is at the core of the Team Swachh initiative and it leverages the vast passion for the sport in the country to advocate toilet use and save lives of children.”
After Dharamshala, Mohali and Delhi, the ICC WT20 Host City Tour will visit each of the venues that will host the ICC WT20 matches. It now travels to Kolkata (24th Feb) followed by Nagpur (27th Feb), Chennai (1st March), Bangalore (3rd March) and Mumbai (6th March 2016).
Earlier in October 2015, the ICC Cricket For Good and UNICEF launched a five-year global partnership in New York. They decided to engage the broader cricketing community to empower children and adolescents. In particular, during the many ICC events over the next five years, they will develop and implement various community outreach programmes and initiatives in collaboration with coaches, cricketers and cricketing personalities.