‘Street20’ hope for young people in St.Vincent

Earlier in 2011 Cricket for Change (C4C) in association with TATSPE (Trinidad and Tobago Sports and Education Programme) visited Trinidad to introduce the concept of ‘Street20’.  The next stage in this partnership was for a number of C4C coaches to visit the small St. Vincent back in November (2011) to deliver a ‘Street20 Sports for Development Programme’.

The main objectives of the programme were to show the participants the game of ‘Street20’, motivate them to develop the game in their own areas on the island and to see how the Sport for Development can work using cricket.

Many of the young people on the island (of St. Vincent) have anti-social behaviour issues and are often seen to be heading into the hills to grow their own drug gardens. The local young people are also seen to “lime” which is where young people hang around the streets and do menial tasks for the general public for a pittance rather than going to get an education.

The hope for using ‘Street20’ was to target all young people on St Vincent with at first, a focus on those who are disengaged.

Implementation

The ‘Street20’ course ran for 2 and half days with 14 young coaches from the Sport section of the government taking part in the training.

The young coaches, as expected took to the game very well and the group were incredibly keen on playing and umpiring the game themselves. The one thing that they found “unique” about ‘Street20’ is the coach’s interaction and commentary of the game. This is done to keep young people involved in the game at all times, to heighten the excitement of the games and to keep other young people on the sidelines of the game involved as well.

The group were also fascinated by how youth work, sport for development and cricket can all work together. Many of the youth work games C4C implements are linked to real circumstances in their communities. The parallels between sport and everyday life are shown and which ensure more engaging and positive training which in turn well equips those leading future sessions and programmes.

The group were shown a number of different games, skills and drills to implement in their schools or community sessions which will also add to their delivery style skills in the future.

It is very important that the group that will deliver these programmes takes ‘ownership’ and so part of C4C ‘Street20’ training, is to facilitate discussion amongst the group into thinking about ideas and plans on how they would like to deliver the programmes in their schools and community.

They know what ideas and activities would suit their local communities best and then C4C support those ideas with additional experienced thoughts.

On this training course was, former West Indian cricketer Deighton Butler and he volunteered himself to be the person to co-ordinate the games and the big competition. His presence on the project could provide a real “superstar” status to help gain interest in the future of programme.

'Street20' Hope
The coaches in St Vincent are incredibly talented at what they do and C4C are sure that with a bit of help from the government (in particular with phone bills and facilities), the programme will be a great success.

It is a small island with little resources but with this group of motivated people, an engaging and positive ‘Street20’ league (for many young people in schools and in the community) is a very real prospect and maybe the answer to many young people’s prayers.

Report by Danny Baker, Training Manager for Cricket for Change