Eight districts in Madhya Pradesh.
Dozens of tribal, rural, and semi-urban teams.
One winner.
Oh – and one very important rule:
Each team must have a girl captain.
And not just that – each team must have a girl majority participation.
Welcome to the Samaveshi Cup – an annual state-wide co-ed cricket tournament organized by Synergy Sansthan.
Over the course of one month, teams from all regions of Madhya Pradesh compete in qualifying games. The best sixteen reach the finals tournament, which is held in Harda, at its unofficial town square, Nehru Stadium.
At the weekends leading up to the finals, all the staff from Synergy Sansthan travel to towns and villages to organize and officiate the play-in bracket. Then the week before the tournament is an all-hands-on-deck craft-a-thon. Banners painted with the phrase “Break Gender Norms!!”, flags with words like “Equality!” and “Girl power!”, and posters that show cartoon boys and girls playing cricket together are handmade and hoisted at every corner of the grounds.
The more obvious goal of the cup is simple: encourage boys and girls to play together. Yet the real goal is approached subtly: empower young women to lead, and create an environment for their communities to listen.
At the tournament, someone jokingly told me that the three pillars of Indian culture are “food, Bollywood, and cricket.” Using the vehicle of a cricket tournament aptly meets the youth where they are and encourages them not just to win, but to work together in order to do so.
A common theme that my host organization embraces is the power of investing in community. This is more than building the appropriate tool or developing access to specific resources and goes toward investing in the people and laying the foundation for lasting change. For many girls, this cricket tournament is the first time they are allowed to play an organized sport – let alone playing on a co-ed team, under stadium lights.
But when the bowler throws the ball, all of the preconceived societal norms melt away. What instead takes shape is not just a group of boys and girls, but teammates with a shared goal.
Tasked with making a video about this year’s tourney, I wanted to ensure that I captured more than just the highlights of the matches. Transitioning my filmmaking skills into the development sector has opened my eyes to the power of storytelling, especially when it comes to the details. Every hand-painted flag encouraging gender equality became a narrative tool. Each player, an impassioned protagonist. Every pregame stare between opposing teams built tension, and every wide smile and funky dance move released it.
Here is a link to the video I made for this year’s Samaveshi Cup:
This is the fifth year that Synergy Sansthan has held the Samaveshi Cup, and with each year, the reach of this event grows, encouraging more and more boys and girls to play and win together.
Synergy Sansthan believes in a future of equality for boys and girls.
And they’ll get there, one sixer at a time.
