Throughout our time in Uganda the team has included not just the 6 CWB volunteers but also 2 Ugandans – Grace Mutyagaba, Northern Regions Development Officer for the Ugandan Cricket Association, and Isaneez Emmanuel, our CWB Ambassador. They have been involved in developing schools cricket in the areas we were going into, building on the work of previous projects and laying foundations that would ensure schools were in the best place to benefit from our visit.
As part of our work with Grace and Emmanuel we have been using Lee’s extensive experience of working on CWB projects and my professional background as a Cricket Development Officer to help build their understanding of sports development. Our final day of coaching proved an opportunity to set them a real test – could they organise a coaching session for all of the schools who’s teachers had been involved in the Coach Eduction on our first day. With 10 schools needing to be covered by a team of 8 it was going to be a challenging task that if successful would mean we would coach over 1000 children in a day.
With some hard work and good planning, alongside advice and support from us, 9 schools were successfully timetabled. The plan involved splitting the group into two teams and included travel plans for Joseph so that both teams could be at their schools at the right time.
While a few hiccups occurred – an underestimation of the walking distance between two schools meant kit bags had to be transported on a teachers bicycle, and several schools managed to interpret a request for 100 students as something more in the 200 range – the day turned out to be a massive success. We coached a total of 1410 students across the day, assisted by teachers fresh out of Coach Education the previous day, always managing to include the HIV messaging while ensuring all schools had a positive experience of cricket before the testing day.
The coaching team worked with a dogged determination and enthusiasm, using the short, sharp 1hr30 sessions to deliver skills in relays before switching out to games – more often than not the ever-popular rapid fire! While it was certainly tiring I felt extremely satisfied and proud when we sat down to several cold bottles of Mountain Dew in the hotel afterwards. My day was made as, as we rolled into the hotel at the end of the last session, two boys from a school we had delivered in earlier walked past and flashed us the T signal we had used whenever we talked about the importance of testing for HIV – the power of messaging done right in action!
I believe the day really opened Emmanuel and Grace’s eyes to what is possible and more importantly what they are capable of achieving, even in a challenging area like Northern Uganda. I hope that they will continue to apply the skills they have developed over these two weeks to the work they will deliver once we have left the country – if they do then cricket in the area should be in good hands!