I have been given the opportunity to lead a team of enthusiastic cricket coaches in a project working in the heart of Kenya during March and April 2010. The aim of the project is simple: teach cricket to both adults and children, and in so doing promote a healthy lifestyle.
The Cricket Without Boundaries Trust was established in April 2005 as a registered charity in the UK operating under the name of Cricket Without Boundaries ("CWB").
CWB has three main goals:
- To spread cricket through coaching children and teaching adults how to coach.
- To link the sport to HIV/AIDS awareness and incorporate these messages into coaching sessions.
- To bring together and empower local communities through cricket.
The link between sport (particularly cricket) and HIV/AIDS is not an obvious one to everyone. However, CWB has found that sports coaches are in a unique position to impart a message of staying healthy and doing so within a fun and trusting environment. They often have the respect of those that they coach, and are not perceived in the same negative way that sometimes local children perceive their teachers or a health worker. They are ideally placed to talk about the importance of staying healthy to fulfil someone's true potential, both on the field and in life generally.
In Sub-Saharan Africa alone there are 22 million people living with HIV, with 2 million adult and child deaths from AIDS in 2007. A large number of those infected are children: many of whom are in cricket playing nations in Africa. It is not just medicine that is needed, but education and a focus on changing behavioural patterns.
Cricket is a game of unique qualities. Cricket Without Boundaries is an amazing opportunity to help children to experience these qualities. It is about breaking down barriers, putting a smile on their faces and leaving a legacy.
Working in partnership with the cricket associations in each country, the relevant British High Commissions and the ICC, CWB follows a simple, three stage, sports development structure to try to ensure some form of sustained development of the game: 1) coach education; 2) schools coaching, and 3) a tournament.
The coaching education takes the form of teaching adults the basics of cricket through the ICC's Introduction to Cricket course (which includes coaching, umpiring and scoring) as well as for more developed coaches delivering the ICC's level 1 and 2 awards. CWB tries to link the coaching in with each National Cricket Association's existing development plans.
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