As the Lions Cricket Union, we take tremendous Pride in our motto: One Team, One Stadium, One City of Gold.
We are fully cognisant of the community and society we live in, abundant of opportunities, aspirations and challenges and hence we are invested in the communities that we serve outside of the game.
For this reason, the Lions Cricket Union is invested in various off-the field socio-economic development programmes and initiatives including but not limited to Cricket Development, Education, Health, and Poverty Alleviation programmes.
Education
On the education front, Lions Cricket continues to work with various institutions offering on and off field academic support. Lions Cricket concluded a ground-breaking Memorandum Of Understanding with the University of the Witswatersrand where continuous learning opportunities are offered to various students covering coaching, mentoring, bursaries, training and use of facilities.
The ongoing and much valued academic support from Richfield ensures our players and staff are covered in the form of bursaries and scholarships.
Health
Lions Cricket Union together with the cricketing community; Cricket South Africa; Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital; Partners and Sponsors, we celebrated 10-years of the fan-favourite Pink Day One Day International in 2020/21. We take great pride in our 10th year of raising the breast cancer awareness.
PinkDay is a day where we celebrate the human spirit to overcome breast cancer. It’s a day when survivors, family, friends, and cricket fans young and old, dress up in pink in support of breast cancer sufferers and their families.
As statics show, 1 in 28 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. These are often the caregivers in a home and as such, it is safe to say that it is a disease that affects at least 1 in 28 families in South Africa. Men can also develop breast cancer; 1 male for every 100 female patients develop breast cancer in their lifetime.
Lions Cricket Union will continue to champion this cause as we believe that early detection does save lives.
Gender Based Violence
In 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the second pandemic to hit South Africa: Gender Based Violence…a call to all South Africa to help fight the scourge of high femicide levels.
South Africa has the highest rate of Gender Based Violence and femicide incidents in the world and the numbers remain unabated.
In response, the Lion Cricket Union partnered with the NGO People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA) who are at the forefront of fighting this high scourge through various awareness campaigns, financial and non-financial programmes. This was on the backfoot of creating a conducive, diverse, sustainable and healthy social environment for all to live in it. As Lions Cricket Union, our ambition to grow women’s cricket was compromised due to the unrelenting gender based violent incidents.
To this end, Lions Cricket Union launched an awareness campaign aimed at raising the high levels of femicide and position the Imperial Wanderers Stadium as a dedicated non-perishable food parcel donation drop off point with all donated goods passed on to some of the affected families.
Our sincere gratitude to Elegance Jewellery at Melrose Arch who donated 500-elegantly designed bracelets to raise awareness with all proceeds donated to POWA.
Feeding Scheme
On the poverty alleviation front, we can all agree that 2020/21 was a most challenging year. The COVID19 outbreak has severely impacted not only our sporting community but the world at large with many lives lost, changes in what we knew as the norm and continues to threaten many families and the livelihood of community’s.
To this end, we would like to acknowledge and thank all our partners: the Muslim Association of South Africa (MASA); Feed SA; Veterans Cricket Association; Ashraful Aid Humanitarian Organisation; The Angel Network and many more NGOs and civil organisations that continue to heed the call to reach out to communities in dire need through various poverty alleviation efforts, hygiene, donation of masks and sanitisers.
Our sincere appreciation and gratitude to all the Volunteers, Staff, Players, SAPS, JMPD, SANDF, Community Leaders, Councillors, and the community at large who welcomed us into their communities.
In the 2020/21 fiscal, Lions Cricket Union, through the support of various partners, managed to distribute in excess of 5000 food parcels worth over R5mil across various communities.
Girl Child
The ‘donate a pack’ campaign was launched on Women’s day this year. The campaign will continue through the entire season, seeks to address the larger socio- issue of a girl child staying out of school due to no access to sanitary towels. It is estimated that 80% of girls in under privileged communities miss 5 days of school per month on average during their menstruation period due to failure to access sanitary pads and the initiative helps to keep a girl child in school.
Poverty alleviation
Food gardens to be planted in our hubs as a means of food security. This allows for opportunity of after school programs where young cricketers can have a meal prepared at the hub. #LIONSCAREGARDERNS
Staff voluntary program
The strategic volunteerism programs enable both staff and players to make a difference in the communities we serve. This will be facilitated through a volunteerism program known as the Lions Staff Care. We will use this program to ensure that our staff take time to engage with our communities, our staff will be encouraged to take the time to apply their skills and talents in order to help improve the lives of others, which also helps them understand the communities we serve better.