The Hindu : National : Pitching for girls' education

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 07, 2004

National

National

Pitching for girls' education

By Karthik Subramanian

— Photo: N. Balaji

Neelam Bharti (left) and Nirja Kumari from Uttar Pradesh with the cricket captain Sourav Ganguly, in Chennai on Tuesday.

CHENNAI, JULY 6. The Indian cricket team will now pitch for the cause of the education of the girl child.

On behalf of the team, captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Wright pledged on Tuesday their support to the United Nations Children's Fund's (UNICEF) `Fair play for Girls' campaign for the South Asian region. The team is in Chennai practising for the Asia Cup tournament due to start next week.

According to UNICEF statistics, more than 46 million children in South Asia, a majority of them girls, are out of school. The organisation has tied up with the Asian Cricket Council, which represents 20 cricket councils in the continent, to promote the campaign.

Two young women from Uttar Pradesh, who had dropped out of school but later rejoined through a UNICEF programme, thanked the cricketers for their support.

Thirteen-year-old Nirja Kumari lives in Godwa village in Lucknow district, in an area that is cut off for some period of time every year owing to floods. Female literacy in the region is around 19 per cent, the lowest in the State. After attending a transit school in the area, Nirja hopes to become a doctor. She does not want to get married early like her elder sister, who became a mother when she was 16.

Twelve-year-old Neelam Bharti said she initially dropped out of school as she found "studies too boring." But she is now happily back in school. She appealed to the cricketers to ensure that none of their `sisters' in the country missed out on basic education. "One day, I will be a teacher in my district and ensure that no one drops out of school," she said.

Cricketers Ajit Agarkar, Parthiv Patel, Zaheer Khan, Amit Bhandari, Irfan Pathan, Ashish Nehra and Murali Karthik signed autographs for the girls.

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