Chairman of Trustees Visits Pilot Programme

I’ve just spent a few days in Nairobi and thought you would like to be briefed on progress – which is phenomenal and much better than even I had imagined.

In a nutshell:

1. I visited two of the schools, Kwarangawe and Kangame.
2. Training sessions were going on at Kangame – a Cultural Day was being held at Kwarangawe.  The atmosphere at the latter was amazing.

The really impressive thing, which hit me very hard, were the amazing changes in attitude by the children.  I had thought that they were enjoying themselves last year.  But, by comparison with I saw this time, I was wrong.  Their enthusiasm, their laughter and, most particularly, their ability just hits one so hard – and all in one year.

I think I can sum up the improvements in a few words:

1. The children talk openly about character stuff.  We spoke with some really young ones and I almost couldn’t believe what I heard.
2. Loads of the children want their careers to be in cricket.
3. At one session, the children were trying to hit the ball as far as they could and run.  But one enlightened boy, each time he faced, just placed the ball several yards into the covers and ran.
4. They have a new tee shirt – with on the back    “Cricket Character Community”.
5. The schoolteachers with whom we talked were over the moon.  They remarked, in particular, on the extent to which the attitudes of the children in class had been transformed – “enthusiasm”, “participation”, “alive” and “alert” were words used frequently;
6. But, perhaps most remarkable of all – a social media exchange between the coaches – one talking of “character” and the reply being, “Hey Manu, this character stuff applies to us too.”