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In Uttar Pradesh, India\u2019s most populous state, there are more schoolchildren than there are people in Australia. On Tuesday, one of them, a tall 14-year-old girl, tells Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins about her life. \u201cIn our village,\u201d she says, \u201cboys can go out, girls cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she speaks, Dr Amit Mehrotra, program head of UNICEF in Uttar Pradesh, adds context for this masthead. Twenty per cent of girls in Uttar Pradesh enter arranged marriages before they are 18, he says. \u201cIn so many cases, it\u2019s children bearing children,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
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Australian captain Pat Cummins at school in Lucknow.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Greg Baum<\/cite><\/p>\n Cummins has been at Composite School in Aurangabad on the outskirts of Lucknow for nearly two hours and has worked up a sweat as if in the final overs of a World Cup match, but his attention is unwavering. He says he believes in education in all its forms, which is why he takes to heart his role as a UNICEF ambassador.<\/p>\n His late mother, Maria, was a teacher and he\u2019s already thinking about how education might deliver the sort of limitless opportunities for his two-year-old son Albie that cricket has for him. His scoop for the children at Aurangabad is that he loved woodwork at school. \u201cIn HSC, you don\u2019t get marks for it, but I kept doing it because I loved it so much,\u201d he says. \u201cI still love doing a bit of DIY at home – but I\u2019m terrible at it.\u201d<\/p>\n Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins with two students at a school in Lucknow.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Greg Baum<\/cite><\/p>\n The Aurangabad school caters for 6- to 14-year-olds from the nearby suburbs and villages that are being swallowed up by Lucknow\u2019s expansion. Some are from what Mehrotra calls \u201curban poor pockets\u2019, whose parents work at menial jobs like house help and rickshaw-driving, typically earning less than $200 a month.<\/p>\n The school is running a program seeded by UNICEF and funded by the government. Called Learning By Doing, it began in 60 schools in Uttar Pradesh, but UNICEF is aiming to extend it to 1800 schools this year and eventually across the country and into the rest of South Asia.<\/p>\n It\u2019s both practical and idealistic. At one level, it is meant to enthuse children who otherwise might find education too remote and abstract from their world. So it is that Cummins engages the children on a range of their projects: making kites, bikes, lenses, self-propelled model cars fashioned out of old plastic bottles, compost – and chocolate cake.<\/p>\n He takes a measuring tape out of a tool kit and explains how he uses one to lay out his run-up (24.5 metres, since you ask). This prompts one boy to ask how you become a fast bowler. \u201cLong run-up, practice,\u201d he replies, \u201cand get a bit angry sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n The gender mix in this lab\/workshop is not what you might expect. This is not accidental. \u201cWhat UNICEF is trying to bring is gender role reversal,\u201d explains Mehrotra. \u201cGenerally there are typical roles assigned to boys and girls. With Learning By Doing, we are shifting that narrative. We are getting boys to learn those things which generally the girls do, and we are getting girls to learn those traditional boys roles.\u201d<\/p>\n Pat Cummins in his element at a school in Lucknow.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Greg Baum<\/cite><\/p>\n Across a dusty forecourt, the focus changes. Here, the girls\u2019 horizons are being lengthened and broadened. Climate change, water conservation and energy conservation are on the syllabus. So too are ways to counter domestic violence, cultivate respect between genders and open doors shut to their parents. Two girls put on an arresting judo display for Cummins.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gender gap is still so great. But these girls eventually become women,\u201d says Mehrotra. \u201cThey carry the legacy to the next generation. As they transition from girls to women, they\u2019re more empowered.\u201d<\/p>\n He says there was resistance from some men to the program, but it had faded faster than you might expect. And by normalising school attendance, Learning By Doing is having one simple effect: to delay and sometimes circumvent the risk of an early, involuntary and disempowered marriage. \u201cChildren must be allowed to have an adolescence,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n By now, the Australian captain is sitting on the floor, hemmed in by fresh-faced, uniformed schoolchildren (and let\u2019s be honest, a few teachers), a world away from his element and in it at the same time.<\/p>\n Pat Cummins draws a crowd at a school in Lucknow.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Greg Baum<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cIt makes me grateful for the opportunities I\u2019ve been given my whole life, especially around education,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s inspiring to see kids here thinking about big problems they\u2019re trying to solve, and armouring with the skills to go out and try to fix them.\u201d<\/p>\n Cummins admits to what he calls a \u201cselfish\u201d agenda in his ambassador role. International cricket, he knows, can become an unhealthily enclosed and introspective occupation. \u201cI love coming to these programs. It really takes you outside of the cricket bubble,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s always a great way to bring you down to earth pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n An IPL regular, Cummins is happy to further his acquaintance with India and its bewildering thousand faces. \u201cThere\u2019s a culture here you can go about it two ways,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can think it\u2019s big and scary and overwhelming and you can hide in your hotel room, or you can embrace it. It\u2019s so different to Australia, but I\u2019ve really grown to love it.\u201d<\/p>\n Pat Cummins with some budding engineers at a school in Lucknow.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Greg Baum<\/cite><\/p>\n In a previous cricket generation, former captain Steve Waugh was known for exploring beyond cricket\u2019s four walls, once meeting Mother Teresa and establishing long-term links with an orphanage in Kolkata. He was celebrated for it. In this age, by some kind of reverse sanctimony, Cummins is sometimes mocked for his extracurricular work. He\u2019s \u201cwoke\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWho cares? It means nothing,\u201d he says. \u201cGetting out, doing these programs, seeing UNICEF\u2019s work, that\u2019s nothing but an amazing thing for the world. I feel really lucky to be in this position.\u201d<\/p>\n Mehrotra says there is a gain in Cummins\u2019 appearance beyond the photo opportunity. \u201cIt gives a message to the government that there are a lot of good, willing people engaged with UNICEF,\u201d he says. \u201cIt helps to raise trust in the UNICEF program. It helps to build the UNICEF brand, and this is important because, at the end of the day, it\u2019s UNICEF\u2019s brand value we take to the table to make suggestions.\u201d<\/p>\n Cummins\u2019 visit concludes on a powdery pitch in a grassless playground with a bit of, what else, cricket. The sportswriter in me cannot help but wonder what havoc India\u2019s spinners would wreak here, but that\u2019s a bubble thought. One girl catches the eye delivering medium pacers with a high action not unlike today\u2019s celebrity guest. He nods approvingly (under UNICEF protocols, no child is named in this story).<\/p>\n Watching on, Mehrotra admits he was cheering against Cummins last Sunday night. \u201cOf course, because I\u2019m an Indian,\u201d he says. \u201cBut after this, whenever Pat is playing, I\u2019ll be supporting him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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