Street Child Cricket World Cup 2019: Playing for a life beyond the streets

Street children are harnessing the power of cricket to raise awareness about the challenges they face and the solutions they want

Mohammad Waris, a 12-year-old school dropout, is already a master cutter. With hands that move at lightning speed, he cuts cloth bands to make summer caps. He has been working for seven years to support his family with a meagre weekly income of Rs 300, putting an end to his own childhood, long before it even began. But now, he finally has a chance to live what many only dream of—play at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London come April 30. 

Street Child Cricket World Cup 2019 (SCCWC), the first such World Cup for street children, is being organised by Street Child United (SCU), a United Kingdom-based organisation which works towards supporting the life of children who face violence and abuse on the streets. Other than India, the tournament will host children from eight countries including Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, United Kingdom, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Mauritius. The teams from each country consist of both boys and girls in equal numbers, making it a gender-equal tournament. 

India is all set to send two mixed teams for this World Cup. While Save the Children India and HOPE Foundation put together India North, India South consists of team members selected and trained by Magic Bus and Karunalaya. All four of these not-for-profit organisations, based in Gurugram, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai respectively, work towards improving the lives of children by providing education, healthcare, economic opportunities and even supporting them during times of need such as natural disasters and conflict. 

Former Indian cricket team captain Sourav Ganguly extends his support for the teams playing at the Street Child Cricket World Cup

Pragya Vats, head of campaigns for Save the Children India, says, “Street children are the most neglected in terms of education and healthcare. And, as they are a very mobile population, it is difficult to reach out to every last child because of very little accurate data.” In order to tackle this problem of  “invisible” street children, who are underrepresented and devoid of an identity — sometimes nameless and even ageless — Save the Children plans to put these street-connected children in the spotlight. 

Street Child United organises international sports events whenever major tournaments, such as the FIFA World Cup or ICC Cricket World Cup, take place to provide a parallel platform for street-connected children. For instance, SCU organised the first Street Child Games in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro, ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Through this World Cup — which is being held a month before the cricket World Cup — organisations working towards the betterment of children wish to unite people from various nations and give “The Invisibles” a platform through sport to make their voices heard. 

But as these children usually lack any form of legal identification, arranging travel documents for them is not easy. N Paul Sunder Singh, founder and secretary of Karunalaya, a non-profit organisation that has been working towards the protection and holistic development of street-connected children in Chennai since 1995, says , “Obtaining documents such as passport and visa for these children was a very tough task since most of them do not have birth certificates or address proof.” However, these NGOs began the process to obtain these documents almost a year ago, keeping in mind the delay they might face because of insufficient supporting documentation. Eventually, school bonafide certificates and Aadhaar cards helped pave the way to passports. 

Despite such shortcomings, the teams have managed to secure support of former captain of the Indian cricket team Sourav Ganguly, current captain of Indian women’s cricket team Mithali Raj and Indian Premier League team Rajasthan Royals. “I know from my own experience that sports has the power to inspire and bring out our country’s untapped potential. This initiative will help provide a level playing field for children who have for far too long been outside the boundary,” says Ganguly. Raj, who has been made Goodwill Ambassador for team India feels sports can garner public support for India’s 2 million street-connected children. 

Help is coming for the team from other corners as well. PTC India Financial Services, an infrastructure finance company, is supporting the teams by enabling professional training for the children to prepare for the tournament. Most of the boys and girls that were selected had the aptitude to play cricket and some were naturally talented, but all of them had to be trained for the World Cup. HOPE Foundation even had Richard Catherwood, a country cricketer for Buckinghamshire County Veterans who has coached youth teams before, fly down from London to coach the children selected in Kolkata for a couple of weeks. 

Street Child Cricket World Cup has its own format called Street20 which has been designed specifically for this tournament. Each team will have six of its players play 20 balls over five overs. Unlike usual cricket, there is no leg before wicket (LBW) and the leather covered cork balls have been replaced by tennis balls to make the sport as safe as possible. The preliminary matches will begin on April 30 and take place at Cambridge whereas the finals will be played at Lord’s on May 7. 

Waris, along with his team members, Anjali Paswan, Lusi Sharma, Ayushman Choudhary, Millie Singh, Soni Khatoon, Tarak Sardar and Jabar Ali are preparing to take the international stage, not just to play cricket but also to raise awareness about the issues they face as children from the streets. All of them are under 17 years of age. They will also participate at the Children’s Congress after playing the World Cup to raise awareness about the challenges they face and the solutions they want from governments world over. 

According to “Standard operating procedure for care and the protection of children in street situations”,  a 2017 report by Save the Children, 70 per cent of the children living on the streets are employed in child labour and 79 per cent of these children do not have identification documents. In such an environment, sport has managed to emerge as a saviour for children who have been marginalised, ignored and forgotten. 

Street Child United plans to make this tournament a regular feature. Children will have home advantage in the next edition in 2023 when the World Cup will be hosted by India.