Children bat for health with cricket stars

In a unique and remarkable CSR initiative under the aegis of ICC Cricket For Good and Team Swachh, star players from the participating ICC World Twenty20 India 2016 men’s and women teams have been engaging with children and adolescents on sanitation and toilet use, as one essential step towards ending open defecation in India.

As the cricket frenzy of the ICC World Twenty20 India 2016 begins, cricketers from 16 teams will join forces to promote messages on health, sanitation and hygiene as part of the innovative Team Swachh campaign. With more than 564 million people still defecating in open, largest number of any single country in the world, children in India suffers the effects of poor toilet use. Almost 1 in 10 of the 1.2 million children, under the age of five, who die every year in the country succumb to diarrhea. It is linked to poor water, hygiene and sanitation. Some 40 per cent of the country’s children are stunted – chronically malnourished – a condition which is linked to open defecation. 14 children from different schools of South 24-Parganas joined the clinic and shared the key messages on hand washing and toilet use with cricketers.