The United Kingdom (UK) based Cricket Development and AIDS awareness charity, Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB), will make its fourth detour into Botswana today (Sunday).
The group, which is dedicated to educating and developing local communities around the world through the spread and growth of cricket, will be in the country for at least two weeks.
Botswana Cricket Association (BCA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Girish Ramakrishna, said the CWB will be represented by a team that includes coaches, physical education teachers and social workers.
While in Botswana, the team will be expected to visit several places both in the South and the North of the country to teach cricket as well as to spread awareness among kids on AIDS related issues.
Speaking in an interview, the BCA CEO said coming into Botswana this time around, the CWB main objectives will be ‘to coach cricket and to deliver AIDS and HIV awareness messages, continue with the development of coaches worked in the previous years, develop existing coaches and train a new influx of coaches to deliver cricket sessions and HIV and AIDS messages across Botswana as well as provide some cricket development support to BCA to allow for the continued and sustained development of the game.’
While the CWB is always endeavoring to cover some new places in each of their visits to the country, Ramakrishna said this time around, more emphasis will be on places previously visited.
He however said due to the small number of places that can be covered during the CWB visits, as many schools as possible in areas visited will be invited to take part in the CWB projects.
He said for each area, the CWB volunteers will conduct at least two sessions, one in the morning for teachers and another one in the afternoon that will involve children.
“We expect at least 16 teachers in the morning sessions to learn about teaching children the basics of the game. The intention is for teachers to know how to make training kids enjoyable. In the afternoon sessions which includes kids, the teachers, under the eye of the CWB volunteers will do the practical application of what they have learnt in the morning sessions,” Ramakrishna explained.
With cricket continuing to spread across the country, Ramakrishna said the CWB visits to Botswana are very important as many teachers in BCA’s development programmes benefit from the CWB volunteers’ expertise.
The CWB’s first week in the South of the country will see them visiting places such as Jwaneng, Kanye, Molepolole and Moshupa. They will then visit the Northern part of the country where they will spend days at Francistown, Ramokgwebana and Tsamaya.
