Barclays Spaces for Sports funds Street20 Cricket programme for children in India

Barclays Spaces for Sports, Indian children’s charity Magic Bus and UK charity Cricket for Change today announced a new 3 year partnership that will use Street20 Cricket as a development medium for 11,000 children in Mumbai and Delhi. Magic Bus will be trained in Street20 Cricket by ‘Cricket for Change, who are already in India getting the programme underway. 

Kirk Harrison, Head - Barclays Spaces for Sports said: “We are delighted to be entering into a strategic partnership with Magic Bus, the leading Sport for Development NGO in India, on this ground breaking and exciting Street20 Cricket programme. The three year programme will bring life skills to thousands of disadvantaged Indian youths in both Mumbai and New Delhi via the platform of Street20 Cricket as well as leaving a lasting legacy in the local communities via the training of local leaders. Barclays Spaces for Sports and Magic Bus share a common ethos in how sport for development programmes should be structured with gender equality, the right to education, focused measurement and evaluation and sustainability as core components of this initiative.” 

Magic Bus is a charity that teaches the core values of health, respect, equality and education through sport. Their current programme has been delivered to nearly 150,000 children in India. With the support from Barclays, Magic Bus is able to add cricket into their curriculum of sport for development. This allows Magic Bus India to provide trainers with a wider range of sports for its development programme based on the local community where they work. This programme is then used to bring about life changes by addressing local needs in the areas of gender equality, educational opportunities and health. 

Matthew Spacie, CEO & Founder, Magic Bus, said: “We believe that our sport based programme has immense ability to empower children in various areas. We have chosen to focus on the areas of education, gender, health and livelihood because these are major levers of social development. Every child coming into the programme is a triumph for us and seeing them stay with us to emerge as confident, purpose driven youth is the highest reward. The only way we can reach our objectives is through partnerships - partnerships with youth, with parents, with community coordinators and with corporates. It cannot only be our cause; it has to be theirs too which is why I’m delighted Barclays Spaces for Sports have chosen to support Magic Bus’ new Street20 Cricket programme.” 

Cricket for Change has set up Street20 programme across the world from Afghanistan to Israel and the West bank to New York using this street version of the professional Twenty20 game to engage long term with children at risk. A Street20 game is 6 a side, 20 balls per side and takes only 20 minutes to complete and as it’s played with a soft ‘tapeball’, can be played almost anywhere with little risk to people or property. 

"We are delighted to be working in partnership with two organisations who are leading the way in using sport to tackle social problems and our experience of developing programmes in some of the most challenging situations in the world will bring great practical knowledge to this three way partnership," said Andy Sellins, Chief Executive, Cricket for Change.