Darryl went to Northern Uganda in April with the charity Cricket Without Boundaries, which for him was an amazing experience and he wanted to share some of this with you. Therefore, he has included the two blogs he was asked to do during the 12 day trip and the link which goes to his video link blog. During this short trip Darryl and all volunteers on the trip enthused over 2000 children in Cricket and coached 80 coaches to continue the legacy when the volunteers are not in the country!
Day 3 Pitch Perfect!We all turned up on day 3 with Great Expectations as five schools embarked on the Arua primary school playing fields, after supporting the local coaches through several drills including the encouragement with all the very important ABC messages, project leader Lee, whilst almost losing his voice, arranged five stations for competition time. It was great to watch in the bowling competition almost every player bowling with a straight arm. No one could have guessed which school would win with the talent on show, however after a very close encounter Muni Primary School won the afternoon session was split with 6 of our group going off to a new school with no cricket background and what they thought was going to be about 40-60 children soon turned in to 170, Lee keeping us on our toes again!
How fantastic to get the HIV /aids message across to this amount of new children to CWB. Several local coaches led the sessions today and did brilliantly. Bring on day 4 Festival pairs cricket on the Field of Dreams! Watch the video blog here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FaFaqo3CI30 Day 9 The Sound of Music! Darryl reports on all the action from our first day in Lira Another hot and steamy day in NorthernUganda as we embarked on our first coaching session with the coaches of Lira it was like the end credits of Dads Army as we marched over to our field a couple of minutes away from the Hotel. We were blessed with 14 coaches however we managed to coax another 4 people watching to join in the proceedings.We started with the usual game, where one of our party Michael, hit the ball into the next field, good hitting Mikey!
The game was followed by the coach education session, getting the coaches learning the fundamentals of cricket and enforcing the ABC messaging and for a lot of new coaches albeit quite quiet, burst into action when they were set to run their own sessions and this was generally well prepared and received by the other coaches. An unexpected school turned up with 22 children that had plenty of coaching and fun and of course the introduction of the ABC CWB song which is becoming a regular feature of our trip and is definitely beyond a reasonable doubt fast becoming, well some would say annoying, but for the children that’s entertainment.
Sing a long with Woobly Woodsy.As well as teaching important HIV/AIDS awareness messages I think this sign puts into perspective why we are in the North of Uganda as the region has suffered hugely in the recent past and the opportunity to play however small a part in helping the area recover is a real honour .Other photos from the tourOne of the first schools we visited.Just a legend!THE CWB Team to UgandaShe was an absolute legend, really happy girl and a month after our trip due to funds raised she was given a prosthetic leg, just brilliant to be a part of that development and joy to see was amazing. OR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING OTHER VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES PLEASE GO TO www.cricketwithoutboundaries.com
