Cricket for Good (Fiji)

There is a critical need in Fiji for opportunities that build social and emotional competencies and promote gender equity and rights for children and young people - especially girls and young women. 

In response, the Cricket for Good (Fiji) program provides a safe, inclusive and structured learning environment to equip children (aged 15 to 17) and young people (aged 18 to 25) to overcome challenges, develop peer support networks, and drive change to promote gender equality and the elimination of violence in their communities. 

The program is delivered through a partnership between Cricket Fiji and the Fijian Ministry of Youth and Sports, in partnership with Cricket Australia. 

Cricket for Good (Fiji) incorporates the Ministry's Seeds of Success program, which integrates lifeskills training in crucial areas such as goal-setting, resilience and decision-making alongside cricket activities from the cricket curriculum.

An essential component of the model is the training and ongoing support for community-based youth coaches, which ensures sessions are delivered in relevant languages and lifeskills learning is contextually and culturally relevant to children’s lived experiences.

Coaches are provided training and are accredited and mentored to deliver the Cricket for Good (Fiji) curriculum to children and young people (aged 11 to 25 years, at least 50 per cent female) involving cricket-relevant experiential lifeskills education, cricket coaching and officiating, safeguarding, first aid, data collection and event management. 

With at least 50 per cent of the coaches being female in a sport currently dominated by males in Fiji, the program has an explicit focus on creating opportunities for positive role models to lead by example and to challenge accepted, negative gender stereotypes. 

As highlighted by a 14-year-old female Cricket for Good participant: “It’s not easy for women to be leaders – some people say you are a woman, you cannot be a leader, just watch and let the boys do it. But I [now] think I have the skills to be a leader. A good leader should encourage people, advise them on what is good and bad, have good behaviour, be kind to others and help them”.

The program is adapted from, and informed by, evidence and learnings from the Cricket for Good pilot in Papua New Guinea, designed by ChildFund in collaboration with Cricket Australia and the International Cricket Council and implemented through Cricket PNG.

With learnings from the past two seasons, Cricket Fiji has developed safeguarding standards and practices in line with the International Safeguards for Children in Sport guidelines to ensure children and vulnerable adults are physically and emotionally safe while participating in Cricket Fiji activities beyond the life of the program.