The end of any year always provides a good time to reflect on past achievements.

With that in mind it’s remarkable to reflect that for the three autumn projects we coached 13,594 children. 51% of them were female. Of these 1,319 were able to attend one of 7 festivals, 489 went for an HIV test with our partners at TASO. And to keep the coaching going there are now 129 new Level 1 qualified coaches and 9 Level 2 coaches in Rwanda.

In 2012, we set ourselves a challenging, and if we were honest purely aspirational target: that by 2020 through cricket we would put a smile on the faces of 250,000 children. With these autumn projects that target has been eclipsed. Not only has this immense achievement been done with limited monies, but by staying true to being a charity run by volunteers for volunteers. Of course, more monies raised and greater media recognition would be nice and importantly would allow us to have more ambassadors working in country. The most important thing however is that we have remained credible and reliable in what we do, whilst at the same time staying true to our core values. We have certainly done that these past few years.

But that also means not sitting still in how we deliver our message of social good.

This has led to us constantly evolving how we use cricket to change lives. Not only do we continue to send projects to Africa to deliver key HIV messages on prevention and treatment, but we now work with vulnerable young women exposed to FGM and gender inequality both in Africa and in UK communities through our ground-breaking work with Lancashire County Cricket Club Foundation and in the New Year with the Durham Cricket Foundation.

Discussions are also ongoing with UNHCR about a project in Jordan, working with the refugees where Cricket will be used to try to encourage children to attend school. We are also working with the Refugee Council’s Refugee Cricket Project in Croydon, supporting their coaching delivery by enabling the participants of the project to train to become cricket coaches and role models in the community. It is truly an exciting time to be involved with CWB and we know we will retain your support and enthusiasm for what we do!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas break and a very happy new year.

Ed, Andy, Chris and Graham.