Wicketz coach Callum James stands in a Birmingham community centre bowling cricket balls gently to a group of young men from South Sudan, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Chad. Some look intrigued, others a little dubious; most have no idea what this strange new game is about. It’s very tempting after the first few minutes to think that Callum may have been slightly ambitious on this occasion.
Yet, an hour later, the young men are playing and enjoying a game of street cricket - batting with aplomb, running between the wickets in pairs, scoring freely against the back and sides of the hall, laughing and shouting to each other. Part of this turnaround is due to Callum’s excellent skills as a cricket coach and extensive experience in coaching groups of young people new to the game. Considerable credit, however, is also due to the participants themselves. They have overcome their natural shyness and uncertainty (plus the inevitable language difficulties) to embrace an unfamiliar game, learn something new, and work together both to make progress and enjoy themselves.
Today’s session is part of a collaboration between the Lords Taverners’ Wicketz programme, the Warwickshire Cricket Board, and the Red Cross. The participants are all part of the ‘Surviving to Thriving’ initiative, run by the Red Cross in Birmingham. Red Cross programme leader Ruzina Begum explains more about ‘Surviving to Thriving’ and how today’s session fits within it.
“’Surviving to Thriving’ supports young unaccompanied asylum seekers and refugees who have recently arrived in the UK. Part of our work is casework – helping the young people we work with to access solicitors, doctors, education, social workers etc. The other aspect of the programme revolves around supporting the group socially and emotionally. We run group sessions every Monday. Alternate Mondays are on Zoom, where we will, for example, learn about living in the UK, how to deal with people, or advice on applying to university, college or for jobs. On the Mondays in between, we hold face to face sessions where the participants come together and get involved in sport, music, dance, art etc. Recently we also held a face to face session covering sexual health. This is the first time we have partnered with an external cricket organisation, and it has provided our participants with the opportunity to try something new, meet as a group, learn about a part of British culture, and have some fun.”
“It’s worked very well today,” continues Ruzina. “Initially, some of the participants were reluctant to come. Most have never played any sport other than football. Some of them even asked, “What is cricket?”. We encouraged them to come and try it - and you can see they are having fun. It’s a great opportunity for them to meet up with each other, make friends and even resume previous friendships. There were three completely new participants today, but one of them recognised one of our regular participants from when they were both in Malta last year and they were very happy to see each other again.”
“Hopefully, as they have enjoyed the session today, the participants will pick up a bat and ball and play cricket themselves. They will also hopefully encourage their friends to come and join the sessions too. The feedback we get from participants about the programme is that it feels like a family. Life can be very lonely in a new country on your own, so sessions like this are great for making new friendships, learning new skills, and having fun. I can see how quickly people develop confidence and learn English – one of today’s participants arrived in the UK in April this year, speaking no English, and yet today he has been translating for Callum to the rest of the group.”
