It has just become easier for parents and caregivers with young children to attend any of the 31 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 matches, thanks to a partnership between the International Cricket Council and PORSE, New Zealand’s largest home-based childcare provider.
Every host stadium during the four-week tournament will have a PORSE pop-up childcare service available to look after the kids while their parents and caregivers watch eight nations battle it out for World Cup glory.
For PORSE and Rainbow Corner childcare centres owner Rrahul Dosshi, the sponsorship deal represents two of his passions: cricket and encouraging more children and families into sport, and a natural collaboration.
“The benefits of being active are well documented. We are committed at our childcare centres and in our in-home services, to encourage our tamariki to be engaged in sport,” says Dosshi.
“While we primarily focus on education, at the same time all our childcare centres have playgrounds. So, sports is very ingrained in our offerings to the community,” he adds.
“One of the things we observed was as a community, not just in New Zealand, but globally as well, there is a big push required to promote women’s sports. So this was a perfect blend for both entities, the ICC World Cup and also PORSE to get into this beautiful joint venture where we can help bring our moms and the kids to the stadiums during the games,” he said.
New Zealand is host of the international tournament, the pinnacle event for women’s cricket. Thirty-one matches will be played in March and April 2022, the first global women’s cricket event to be played since the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia.
Eight of the world’s best cricket nations will go head-to-head in six host cities: Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, in front of a global audience the ICC has estimated will be more than 1.2 billion people.
Dosshi says that with pop-up childcare available at every game, more families will be able to enjoy the occasion, able to relax knowing their young children will be well looked after and entertained. The childcare service is also a first for the ICC.
ICC Cricket World Cup 2022 CEO Andrea Nelson said, “The partnership with PORSE is key to helping achieve our goal of inspiring the next generation. Knowing there’s free and quality supervised childcare means more families can get along to the cricket together – we can’t wait to welcome them and showcase the world’s best women cricketers playing in our backyard.”
The pop-up centres will provide a safe, fully supervised space, filled with toys and games. The under 5s will be looked after by registered PORSE educators while their caregivers relax and enjoy the cricket.
PORSE is also a sponsor of the Auckland Blues rugby team.
“It all started with the Blues, so definitely take my hat off to the Blues for actually going that extra mile as well,” said Dosshi. “We did that for the entire season last year with the Auckland Blues and will continue for this season as well. The response was great and it became a wonderful experience for us wherein we thought let's start pushing our boundaries and look at doing this at a much, much bigger event.”
“Because at the end of the day, these games are family events, we want people who are there to enjoy the sport, enjoy the game, enjoy the place where a child is exposed to a World Cup event, which is fantastic,” he adds.
He says that the response from the community has been quite overwhelming. “People have been highly supportive since it's first of its kind initiative. No one else has done this globally before for a major tournament like this one. So yes, it’s very encouraging, glad to have that support,” he adds.
In a further commitment to international cricket, Rrahul and wife Bhavini are ICC Champions, across the country, helping spread the word about the tournament.
“We are privileged to be able to offer this initiative, one that supports our commitment to cricket, to New Zealand and to our tamariki’s wellbeing,” says Dosshi.