Lucknow: In a first-of-its-kind initiative in the history of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2025, the UP Warriorz are swapping their yellow and purple playing jersey with the Rani Pink jersey to show their support for the education of girls.
The UP Warriorz in partnership with Educate Girls have pledged their backing towards facilitating girls’ education because educating a girl uplifts families, communities, and the nation.
The UP Warriorz team will don this special jersey on 8 March against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru, at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium. Along with the snazzily designed rani pink jerseys, the squad will also sport ‘Her Education, Our Promise’ armbands as a testimony of the UP Warriorz’s ongoing commitment to girls’ education.
The pink jersey symbolises strength courage and resilience, which is inspired by the traits of Rani Lakshmi Bai whose historic conquests have gone on to inspire generations of women in the state and the country. Rani Pink, a colour of power and royalty, represents strength, not weakness. It’s reflected in the UP Warriorz’s logo, where Rani Lakshmi Bai stands in pink, embodying the true Warriorz spirit, the franchise said in a release on Friday.
Through the ongoing partnership, the UP Warriorz have already supported 4000 women and pledged to further strengthen their commitment to girls’ education. In their journey towards empowering every girl with their right to education, Educate Girls aims to impact 10 million learners by 2035.
The UP Warriorz hosted 635 young girls from the Educate Girls programme and Team Balika volunteers, working at the grassroots for education, to experience live cricket at the WPL during the Lucknow leg of the tournament.
Educate Girls, established in 2007, is a nonprofit dedicated to mobilising communities for girls’ education in India’s rural and educationally backward areas. Since then, they have enrolled 1.8 million out-of-school girls and been a pillar of support for 2.2 million children with their learning programmes.
During the UP Warriorz’s first visit to their home city, the players chipped in and helped unveil two murals celebrating cricket, and the inspiring stories of women breaking boundaries in glass ceilings. The UP Warriorz have also put together a well-pieced-out campaign called Papa ki Warriorz, which highlights and narrates stories of a father’s support for their daughter, who is steadily working up the ladder, all the way to the top.
(IANS)
