Healthy Nanas and Disability Cricket

Samoa International Cricket Association (SICA) and Cricket Australia (CA) are delighted to be partnering with Team Up. With aligned vision and values, SICA and CA use cricket as the platform to empower, educate and promote awareness on domestic violence, social inclusion, social-economic development programs that enhance home economic life skills, and health initiatives for women, children and people with a disability.

The Healthy Nanas and Disabilities Cricket Program is based on two long-running programs that provide opportunities to engage and empower communities and achieve gender-based outcomes such as social inclusion, addressing domestic violence, health, and enabling people to play a fun, safe sport.

Healthy Nanas

The Healthy Nanas Program has the objectives of:

• ensuring active participation of older women in cricket
• empowering women through education and social-economic development programs that help enhance self-confidence and boost morale for the nanas to address issues on domestic violence and develop home economic life skills such as gardening, baking, sewing
• empowering women to become leaders in the family and communities. 

In addition, the program aims to promote the benefits of healthy and active lifestyles.

The nanas are mostly middle-aged women lacking access to information and educational programs that help empower them to develop and enhance their self-confidence and become leaders who can speak out against domestic violence in the family and communities. Through these education and awareness programs there is also an opportunity to further enhance their leadership skills by developing home economics, enabling them to become self-sustained and independent. It is also an opportunity to interact and engage with women within their community and women from other villages and church groups. Further, it provides the women with access to a healthy lifestyle as they are at high risk of non-communicable diseases and lack opportunities to play sports in a fun, safe environment.

The Heathy Nanas programs will be run for 16 weeks (four months) in total, comprising modified cricket fun games, and education and awareness programs on domestic violence, social-economic development programs and activities.

Disability Cricket

The objective of the Disability Cricket Program is to provide opportunities for people with disabilities to engage in organised sport programs that will enhance their physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, while also raising awareness on their susceptibility to non-communicable diseases. This will contribute to both health and ‘cricket for all’ outcomes across the country.

Our Disability Cricket Program will target children with disabilities who lack opportunities to play sport, providing them with expert development and health opportunities through inclusive sport. Children with disabilities will also have organised cricket fun clinics and competitions. Further, SICA is looking at training targeted children/students with disabilities to become cricket umpires and eventually recruit these students to assist with SICA’s domestic and school competitions.