Sri Lanka Trip Diary

May 7, 2010

A Diary from Sri Lanka 
by Alex Bassan (Alex is a graduate of the C4C Apprenticeship and now C4C Development Coach)

Alex and other Cricket for Change staff were in Sri Lanka as part of a sustainable cricket development programme commissioned by the ICC along with ICC  partner charity Peace and Sport and UNICEF, Sri Lanka Cricket Board and the British High Commission. The main aim of the programme is to identify 24 former child soldiers from the three Child Soldier Rehabilitation Camps in Sri Lanka and give them the opportunity to train as Cricket Peer Leaders.

Here are some excerpts from Alex’s diary he wrote during his trip to Sri Lanka….If you wish to read the full version, please follow the link at the bottom of these excerpts.

Monday 15th March 2010

After an uncomfortable long plane journey we had a gruelling drive to the hotel. With everyone feeling the flight and tiredness spirits were high and everybody was looking forward to starting. It was 05:00 when we arrived at the hotel and with a few people managing to get a few hours sleep in we were up and ready to leave at 07:15………….

Tuesday 16th March 2010

……I always enjoyed the lunch break, not just because we had the ‘buffet of all buffets’ (we were never disappointed with the lunch that we had) but it gave us a chance to communicate with the other kids around the college and to get out of the intense heat. I always found this time a reflection time for me to look around and see what they have and how lucky I am to have what I have. I would interact with the younger kids who are not involved in the project and just give them catches and do silly handshakes with them; something that would put a smile on their face for the rest of the day…….

Wednesday 17th March 2010

………..When the games had finished we got them back into the class rooms and decided to have a group discussion about the games and how we could improve on them and how they felt they could demonstrate the games better. 

This gave me a chance to search for a bottle of water and in doing so I bumped into some students from the college. I managed to find out some stories from them, they spoke very little English but………After lunch we moved more into their emotions. We got them playing a few games and got them to understand that if they used offensive language against each other or if they where to run a match how would they feel and how they would effect everyone around them.

Thursday 18th March 2010

………Team 1 managed to get to 8 ....team 2 got to 8 .....then team 1 got to 9..... then when team 2, with a speedy count got to number 12, they jumped up out of their seats running around the room like they had just struck gold!

This was the moment for me that I realised we had made a change.

You go back four days and these kids didn’t speak to each other, hardly made contact with us as coaches. It was a very quiet first day compared to now with all the smiling, laughing and being young leaders together.

Friday 19th March 2010

Friday morning came and it was another boiling hot day perfect to get some early rays on the already suntanned Bass-man (that’s me – Alex!)……. When the games were all done we had a presentation along with a speaker from each organisation….But, then two of the young leaders got up to say a few words….. Her words just rolled off her tongue and everyone was listening to what she had to say……turned her life around and gave her a new chance in life…… Then a young man came up to speak,……. But then he said ‘C4C always remember the glass is never half empty, it is always half full’…..…… I took 5 minutes to myself to go outside and have a look at what was going on around me and to have a think over the week that had just been. It was a real eye opener……..

Read Alex's diary by downloading it in full via the link below.

View More about Cricket for Change in Sri Lanka here

View some of the photo's from Sri Lanka on our Flickr pages here

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