England 2005 Ashes hero Matthew Hoggard is swapping his whites for a wetsuit to raise money for Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) as part of its 10th Anniversary.
A decade after helping sink Australia to regain the urn, "Hoggy" – who took 248 Test wickets - is taking the plunge at four open water swimming events starting with the Great North Swim at Lake Windermere (June 12-14).
Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) is looking for a new Country Manager (CM) to continue its work in Kenya.
The volunteer role involves planning projects in partnership with the national cricket association.
The Kenya CM will also be responsible for supporting CWB’s Ambassadors, the local coaches paid by CWB to deliver coaching and HIV/AIDS awareness in between trips.
Today (February 6) is the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutiliation (FGM) and CWB is marking the event by formally announcing our first ever project focussing on the issue.
On February 15 a team of our volunteers and partners 28 Too Many head to Kenya where they will work with the Maasai Cricket Warriors to raise awareness of the practice.
As many as three out of every four girls in Kenya are at risk of FGM and the team will be based in the rural area of Laikipia where it remains prevalent.
Cricket coaching and karaoke were the order of the day at the latest CWB training weekend.
Based at Finham Park School in Coventry around 30 new and returning volunteers from across the country took part in the two-day event to prepare them for their upcoming trips to Africa.
This spring CWB is running trips to Botswana (March 21-April 5), Cameroon (February 6-20), Rwanda (February 6-20) and Uganda (February 22-March 9).
Autumn 2014 saw Cricket Without Boundaries deliver a record six projects across five countries, coaching more than 30,000 children and training around 200 coaches.
With HIV testing tents at festivals in Uganda, establishing links with a research project in Cameroon and our Ambassadors helping us reach record numbers, it has been an incredible last few months.
December 1st, World AIDS day is an annual chance to reflect and showcase the work that goes into fighting this terrible disease and focus on how we can do more.
As this years theme is 'Focus, Partner, Achieve: An AIDS-free Generation,’ we want to reflect on the partnerships we have built in order to help achieve an AIDS-free generation.
In a few days time CWB will be entering its 10th year. It seems only yesterday that myself, Andy and Chris were sitting around a kitchen table talking about how we were going to coach cricket from Cairo to Cape Town.
One of the questions we asked, apart from will the trip even work, was whether we should we set up a Charity to do that? Chris looked into that and the decision was made to apply for Charity status. So 3 volunteers set up a charity, oblivious to what it really involved. But I guess sometimes that’s what you need in life a great idea and a why not attitude. There are just so many reasons not to do things in life. So we took a risk, gave up our jobs and set off from the Nursery Gates at Lords in October 2015 with a variety of plastic cricket sets, our passports and a copy of the Rough Guide to Africa.
The ABC-T message is our method of integrating HIV awareness messages into our cricket coaching. The T is for testing – a key element in fighting the spread of HIV and living positively with HIV.
Testing is also a core element of cricket, for instance asking for a guard to test your set up or testing technique new skill at the end of a coaching session. Normalising testing in a cricket environment, where children can immediately see the benefits and often enjoy the testing process, helps to break down the stigma that prevents many young Africans from getting an HIV test.
I have been back from Kenya for over a week now and I have only just stopped having 'CWB dreams'.
It is as though my brain was still trying to process all the magical, mind-blowing and moving things we encountered.
From the 4000 smiling children we coached, to meeting Massai Warriors and stopping for elephants on the way to 'work', it was an unforgettable fortnight.
Cricket Without Boundaries volunteer Olly Ralph has been named the ECB Young Coach of the Year for the South West.
The 23-year-old from Bristol picked up the award for his work with Gloucestershire’s county and district teams and in local schools.
Olly – who works for bowling machine manufacturers BOLA - visited Uganda with CWB in February and he says the experience has had a hugely positive impact on him both as a person and as a coach.
For the International Day of the Girl Child 2014, 28 Too Many and Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) are pleased to announce a ground breaking project in Kenya using sport to bring communities together, empower girls and encourage the abandonment of female genital mutilation (FGM).
10 years ago, we were in full swing of setting up CWB around our day jobs. It was a unique experience and something out of the ordinary happened almost every day.
This week UNAIDS have released the first ever 'Gap Report', a document that takes stock of the global HIV situation.
The cricket development and AIDS awareness charity, Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB), is celebrating its membership to the UK network STOPAIDS, as part of its efforts to provide an effective global response to HIV and AIDS.
Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) is proud to announce a new partnership with Martin Berrill Sports (MBS), which sees the charity’s merchandise going on sale to the general public. 10 percent of every purchase will be donated to CWB and in addition to this, MBS is covering all of the costs of production, storage and order picking.
We have two events coming up in the next few months to help raise money for CWB.
Volunteers Week (1-7 June) is a national celebration of the work that millions of volunteers do every day, week and month. We took the chance to find out a bit more about why our fabulous volunteers do what they do to grow the charity.
Anybody who has ever attended a CWB training weekend will know about Eva. For those that haven’t, Eva was a young girl who made a long lasting impression on Ed Williams, one of our founding trustees.
What a great series of projects we have seen this spring at Cricket Without Boundaries. Having not long set foot into the charity myself, I was fortunate enough to head out to Rwanda and Kenya to be a part of our teams of volunteers and to see first-hand the hugely positive impact we can have on people through Cricket.
On April 6 Rwanda will mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide that saw one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu people slaughtered by Hutu soldiers and militia in just 100 days.
Time continues to play its part in healing the country's wounds but it is receiving a helping hand from an unlikely source – cricket.
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UK registered charity 1154576