Times, they are a changing

A bright and early start at Heathrow Terminal 5 and a relatively easy bag check-in, was duly rewarded with a tea and bacon sandwiches once we had passed through security. The flight to Nairobi was a mix of anticipation and planning for the week ahead. The clash of three flights arriving at Nairobi airport at 10:30pm led to a two and half hour queue to get past immigration before we could finally exit the airport. A three hour sleep over in Nairobi and the team jumped on a bus heading to Laikipia in the heart of the Maasai territory, picking up CWB’s Kenyan Ambassadors George and Nicholas and 28 Too Many’s Kenyan Ambassador, Esther, on the way

The prevalence of the practice of FGM in the Maasai region means that 3 in every 4 girls in the Maasai community have been cut. The journey north of Nairobi is fuelled with planning for the sessions – working out how the B.A.T message (B – Break the silence and speak about FGM, A – Advocate for change, and T – Together we can stop FGM) can fit into our cricket coaching messaging.

The UK based Cricket Without Boundaries and 28 Too Many team are purposely a largely female team, to show that girls can be strong leaders in their community and can be advocates for change. The work we are doing out in Kenya would not be possible if we did not have the support of the schools we are coaching at, who want to make a change in their community, and the support of the Maasai Cricket Warriors. They have laid the crucial foundations of making changes within their community, using cricket as the vehicle to deliver difficult cultural change messages, in order to sustain the Maasai community for future generations. One of the Cricket Warrior’s key messages is speaking up in their community to promote the end to FGM. On route to the Doldol, the area we are coaching in today, we pick up Maasai Cricket Warrior brothers, Daniel and Benjamin. Their sister, Nancy, was the first in their community not to get cut and faced stigma following this decision from their peers. With the four of us – 28 Too Many, Maasai Cricket Warriors, Cricket Kenya and us working together we want to show the girls we are coaching that women can have a voice and be a positive role model in their community, whilst also showing them that there are people out there, and indeed within their community, who want to give them this support.

This hits home at the second school we visit in the Doldol area. To try and describe the remoteness of this school is slightly difficult to put into writing. So close your eyes and imagine a landscape of undulating dusty sandy hills, smattered with high leaved skinny trunked trees and cactuses as far as the eye can see. The stillness of the scenery is disrupted by the movement of the marauding elephant, giraffe or zebra across the skyline. There are no buildings, electricity lines or any forms of human life for miles. You could be in any moment in time and history, and not know what the time or date is. As the bus emerges over another hill in the distance we could make out the vague shimmering outline of three corrugated iron shacks and a weather-worn Kenyan flag in the distance. The school we are heading to, Soit Oudo, serves a rural Maasai community, living in the mud huts surrounding it. As Ann-Marie, from 28 Too Many, delivers the first session on understanding health in the community to the kids in the school, there’s one stand-out feature in the group. Amongst the 60 kids in attendance at the school, there are around 10 girls present. The teachers identify that girls of this age will generally not be at school as they were either married off early, subject to FGM or put into forced labour. Further interaction with the girls in the group, and their teachers, highlighted that any girl over the age of 15 that we had come across today had been cut. Whilst our attendance at the school may be too late for some of the girls, it is not too late for the younger girls there. At the end of the FGM/ Cricket coaching session the kids cover their index finger in red paint, walk up to a piece of paper and imprint their digit on an A1 sheet of paper signing up to say that they want to end FGM in their community. As we leave the Doldol area we hear a kid on the roadway chanting the message ‘B.A.T – CWB ’ along the roadway.

There is recognition in the group that in a week we cannot change over 2000 years of history and tradition, but with what the Cricket Maasai Warriors have started to do their community, both 28 Too Many and Cricket Without Boundaries are fully behind them in this work, to bring a change and to bring an end to FGM. Day one out here started to show positive signs of this – let’s hope it continues.