Day 1
The training weekend in Brighton was the first time that the ‘Kenyan team’ had met and it was great to put a face to an email address! There were also two other CWB teams at the training and they were due to depart to Rwanda and Botswana – queue some well mannered rivalry!!
You will note that this write up has a familiar feel to it, and it should do as I have pinched the Rwanda’s write up as I am pressed for time and it was expertly written(thanks and sorry Lee!).
So the programme for the weekend was as follows:
Saturday
10.00 – 11.00:Introduction from Andy and Chris 2 trustees of Cricket Without Boundaries
11.00 – 12.00: An example warm up of a cricket drill and a game of indoor cricket incorporating AIDS/HIV messages. It’s interesting how a bit of competition encourages team building!!
12.00 – 1.00:
A heartfelt HIV/AIDS presentation from Veronika who volunteered with CWB last year in Botswana. We learnt many things, some of which can be seen below.
- The difference between HIV and Aids and how HIV is transmitted.
- High risk groups.
- Natural progression and the risk of HIV transmission.
- HIV prevalence worldwide
- In 2008 33.4 million people are infected
- The 19 most prevalent countries are all in Africa, 60% of all people infected globally are in Africa.
- In the worst countries in Africa this can rise to as high as 25%
- 2008 prevalence in Kenya was – 7.1 – 8.3% – although the accuracy of this figure was questioned
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- Only 30% of people who need ARV drugs receive them, 70% do not.
- Effect of HIV/AIDS e.g. the life expectancy in some African countries can be as low as 39 years old.
- Ways to reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS
- CWB messages
- A – Abstain
- B – Be faithful
- C – Wear a condom
- Testing
- Treatment
- Why volunteering is important
- How can cricket help?
We were then sent back into the sports hall and each countries teams were asked to develop and then demonstrate a coaching drill incorporating HIV/AIDS awareness messages.
1.00 – 2.00:
Lunch
2.00 – 4.00:
Outside (definitely colder than Africa) for a sample session run by Andy then again into country groups to each run a session on a different batting stroke. I found this extremely helpful and enjoyed the impressive session held by Ghazi whereby every other word was connected to the CWB message!
4.00 – 4.45:
Country specific logistics, answering all question/concerns that the group had.
4.45 – 5.00:
Back into the hall for a quick game of urban cricket – the less we talk about this the better!
Day two
Started at 9.30, After a fiercely contested 10 minutes of a handball style game any cobwebs were swept away and the rest of the morning was spent in country groups working on more coaching sessions that would incorporate the HIV/AIDS messages.
After lunch it was back into the gym where each team was asked to demonstrate their two best drills to the rest of the teams – an impressive display by the Kenyan team even if i say so myself!
It was then that a Land Rover turned up stuffed to the gills with donated hard ball cricket equipment that was then split up to be distributed into the different countries.
The rest of the afternoon was spent again in country team’s distributing the kit/t-shirts to be taken as luggage and finalising details such as airport meet times etc.
We then had a short ‘team’ presentation from CWB’s Andrew (or Adam!) who answered many questions thrown at him. This concluded a fun and very informative weekend that left us all feeling much more confident about our trip. We were all ready and raring to go but we still had a little over three weeks to wait.
A huge thank you must go to the CWB team for organising the weekend and especially Andy who was around the whole time.
