West Indies team celebrates three years of Sport for Life! in Barbados
Darren Sammy, captain of the West Indies Cricket Team, joinedteam mates Ravi Rampaul, Davendra Bishoo, Andre Russell, Dwayne Bravo and Kemar Roach at the Stephen Alleyne Sport for Life! Learning Centre, Kensington Oval, to celebrate three years of Sport for Life! in Barbados on 30 April.
Sammy spoke about the need for programmes like Sport for Life!, not just in the Caribbean but all over the world, to equip young people with life skills and to install in them the love of sport, particularly cricket.
The West Indies captain and team members were attending a special morning organised by team sponsors Digicel on a rest day between the two West Indies v Pakistan One-Day Internationals in Barbados. Sport for Life! students were excited to meet their heroes and interacted with enthusiasm, gathering autographs and asking the players for tips on their own game.
Talking to the Sport for Life! students, Sammy said that being captain of the West Indies cricket team had been his lifetime dream. He was keen to meet them to learn how their lives were being guided and to encourage them to make the most of the opportunities that SFLI's programmes offer, which could help make their own dreams come true.
Ravi Rampaul said that he would be supporting Sport for Life! at the Queen's Park Cricket Club, Port-of-Spain, during the forthcoming tour by ICC Cricket World Cup Champions India in June. Cricket legend Lance Gibbs, currently representing West Indies cricket team sponsors Digicel, added his magic touch by giving Sport for Life! students a personal master class. Gibbs added that hard work and application were the key to succeeding in international cricket, as in life.
Sport for Life! International (SFLI) is an international community education and cricket programme for disadvantaged 10-16 year olds currently running for 38 weeks a year in Barbados, St Lucia, St Vincent & The Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, the UK and Pakistan, see www.sport-for-life.org/caribbean and www.sport-for-life.org/pakistan.
It is based in SFLI learning centres, complete with IT, established by Sport for Life! at international cricket grounds in those countries. It has the backing of the local communities, cricket authorities and governments in each country. The programmes comprise five elements ? maths, English, IT, healthy lifestyle training and cricket.
SFLI was invited to start programmes in Barbados by the Minister of Sport in 2008 and was officially launched at the Kensington Oval in 2009 by the Barbados government, the Barbados Cricket Association, sponsors and members of the England Cricket Team and the England & Wales Cricket Board. The learning centre was named after leading Barbados cricket administrator, the late Stephen Alleyne, and is supported by Cave Shepherd, the British High Commission, the Coltstaple Trust, The Ella and Nesta Fergusson Trust and the West Indies Cricket Board.
SFLI was officially chosen as the ICC's legacy programme for the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies in 2010.