by Steve Adshead

Former GCCC player, Steve Adshead has provided an exclusive report on his recent trip to Kenya.

It’s been nearly two months since I returned from my charity trip to Kenya with Cricket Without Boundaries. Whilst the demands of a new career outside the game on top of running a coaching business has given me little opportunity to sit down and write this report, the time has allowed me to reflect on what we experienced and managed to achieve.

The charity has worked in 8 African countries and has three major objectives,

To spread cricket through coaching children and teaching adults how to coach; and
To link the sport to HIV/AIDS awareness and incorporate these messages into coaching sessions.
To bring together and empower local communities through cricket.
Our stay in Kenya was split into a week in Nairoi and a week cutting new ground for the charity in Nanyuki, a town in the shadows of Mt Kenya.

We spent most of our first week working in and around a massive slum called Mathare, visiting schools and youth projects, seeing at close quarters the poverty and overcrowding that characterised the place. We had all seen the figures regarding AIDS/HIV in sub Saharan Africa, with up to 1 in 3 people infected in places but facts like that really sink in when you are running a primary school session for 70 kids, knowing that 25 have been orphaned by it and the teachers cant keep track of how many have lost one parent.

These children were not in care or homes but all fended for themselves or were cared for by an older sibling, many of whom were also battling with the illness that had been handed to them at birth. The fact that the kids attended school at all was amazing and due largely to the world food program that provided them with lunches and one guaranteed meal a day. Everywhere we went we were met by excited, eager, beaming faces and a real enthusiasm to learn a game most of them had never seen played. The conditions to coach in were always testing, with large numbers, rough fields and only the equipment we had taken with us from home but the kids were real naturals; being able to run, catch and throw with ease.

The girls in particular showed talent way above that which you would expect to see in England, which was great to see and helped with an important part of the charities objectives. Generally treated as second class compared to their male counterparts, the project hopes that through interacting and playing together, not only will the girls gain valuable confidence, team work and leadership skills but by earning the respect of their male peers and showing themselves as equals it may go some way to reducing the appalling rape figures in the area.

Despite the harsh realities of life in the slums, everywhere we went we were shown great warmth and hospitality, always being invited to meet the head teacher, being offered tea and drinks and sometimes lunch, something which the schools could ill afford to provide. In every school we entered, displayed on the wall was the yearly budget, now we all know schools finances are stretched here but it was with great guilt that one day over tea and muffins we calculated that the school received approximately £2 per child, per term and that our dinner for 7 the night before cost 75% of the schools maintenance budget and 150% of the yearly sports budget.

The schools weren’t the only thing under funded and needing repair, the road system was so archaic and chaotic that in the first week we spent about 25 hours in the back of our mini bus covering only 50 miles between our hotel and the coaching.

Luckily, the second week saw us leave the dysfunctional city behind and drive the 6 hours north to Nanyuki and new territory for CWB. This was the Kenya most of us had been looking forward to, with rolling hills and coffee plantations turning to arid bush and scrub as we crossed the equator and entered Masai country.

Fueled by money from the British army who train there, the town was relatively modern and pleasant but each day we ventured out into the bush along dirt tracks in search of schools. The beggars and marketers who had lined the city streets gave way to the most stunning scenery, thatched Masai kraals and enough wildlife to keep David Attenborough happy. When you coach in England, health and safety involves knowing the fire escapes and making sure the kids hit balls away from each other, in Kenya it is the field clear of snakes and do you run or stand still if a lion enters the playground. Though we didn’t get any visits from the king of the jungle, it was an amazing experience to drive to work each day and see zebra and giraffe regularly crossing our path.

Nanyuki also saw us deliver our most rewarding work, providing sessions not only to the Masai but also the street kids rehabilitation centre and the orphanage for children who are HIV+. It was heart wrenching to hear how youngsters of 10 are taught the implications of their illness but in seeing how happy, healthy and well cared for they were, I couldn’t help but think of the kids we met, they were some of the lucky ones. To be diagnosed, have the retro viral drugs available, three meals a day and a stable living environment was not something the slum kids of Nairobi could ever expect.

The country offered other challenges though, the city kids who were exposed to western tv and music were quite good at understanding English but the Nanyuki kids were not. Whilst the coaching could be conveyed through demonstrations and that great British technique of talking louder, our goal of increasing AIDS awareness required us to learn the lingo. C.W.B’s hypothesis is to take the messages and phrases presented to the kids in school and marry them to the coaching ideas in the hope that they are more likely to stick if portrayed in a fun way. Cricket actually lends itself very well to this, with your batting life easily comparable to your real one, where you only get one go, looking after that life by abstaining from risky behaviors like hitting the ball in the air, protecting your stumps and being faithful to your partner by good calling and running.

I have always felt privileged to play cricket for a living but to be able to take part in this project was a great way for me to bookend my career, give a little back and really appreciate how fortunate I have been. By the end of the fortnight we had coached 1200 children, put 45 adults through an ICC coaching award and left behind equipment at 10 schools. With the enthusiasm we witnessed, I am sure that cricket will take a hold in the Masai areas, as for the AIDS/HIV awareness, its hard to quantify how successful the technique C.W.B use will be but learning the Swahili phrases was fun and a real tongue twister, whilst the enjoyment the kids gained learning the game in what are clearly very tough lives was enough for me to know that the trip was worthwhile.

Thanks again to everyone involved with Gloucestershire who sponsored me to go on this trip, I know your money was well spent.

If you want to read the whole blog of the expedition, go to http://cwbkenya.wordpress.com/