Claire Fallis, the Botswana Country Manager, reports on the Spring 2012 trip.

The team met on a grey morning at Heathrow airport, preparing to spend two, what would turn out to be amazing weeks together in the beautiful Botswana.

There were a number of highlights throughout the project, perhaps too many to mention. However, there is certainly a few which we cannot pass by. The first was the encouragement we received from the Honourable Minister for Public Administration and Presidential Affairs: Mr Masisi. Mr Masisi presented the 29 newly qualified coaches with their ICC Introduction to Coaching certificate. In addition Mr Masisi gave an inspirational talk to around 200 children on the importance of listening to Aids and HIV awareness messages and incorporating the ABC messages in their everyday lives.

The heart of this trip and the heart of every trip has to be the people. All nine CWB team members will tell you the same about the people of Botswana and this is what a great pleasure it was to work with them. Starting with the teachers, whose enthusiasm for the game of cricket, which is new to many of them and their willingness to provide important health messages never failed to impress us throughout our time in Botswana. By the end of the trip we managed to qualify a further 138 teachers as coaches, of which 19 were awarded their ICC Level 1 Cricket Coaching award.

Last but by no means the least of the highlights, the trip was made by the children themselves, many of whom possess some great cricket skills and from the 1100 that were coached we can certainly expect to see some of them making the national team in the not so distant future! We hope that the club structure continues to improve giving children more opportunities to start cricket and stay in the game. The enthusiasm is clearly apparent, so we hope the BCA can continue their good work and obtain further funds to develop the game of cricket throughout Botswana.