Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter
Coach Winston Steele takes the young cricketers through their paces at last Thursday's practice session. - Glenda Anderson Photo
IT'S TIME for cricket practice as three teenagers saunter onto a hard, cracking netball court, in the middle of a dusty playground in Bennett Land, off Waltham Park Road in Kingston.
There was no whistle call, no coach on hand shouting commands, just the signal of the sinking rosy afternoon sun that this was evening time and practice hour.
So here they come first one, then another, three lanky, sweaty, smiling teenagers. After a few minutes of 'horseplay' and social catch up, they were onto the serious business of cricket.
But this is no ordinary cricket club.
Last December the Cricket Club project was launched on the grounds of the S-Corner Clinic on St. Joseph Road in Kingston. It was to include youth, boys aged 11-17 years, from rivaling communities in the same area, all from different backgrounds and with varying skills in the game.
Like its name, the community is a series of sharp bends in the shape of the letter S. The location had come to represent the nature of life-on-the-corner for the young boys. At the time, the idea was to encourage young boys in the areas not only to come out for training in cricket but also to participate in a series of workshops designed to help them to define themselves as men.
"Young men these days growing up in the inner-city communities of Kingston are exposed on a day to day basis to harsh economic and social conditions arising out of poverty and in most instances they are exposed to crime and violence," says Dianne McIntosh, graduate researcher and co-ordinator of the programme.
A student at the University of Hong Kong, Miss McIntosh had also done extensive work among children at risk as the first co-ordinator of the local LEAP centre and pioneering staff at the Ministry of Health's Child Support Unit.
"They are confronted with a lack of resources, poor health care, minimal education, poor family relations, absentee mothers and fathers," Miss McIntosh explains of the fledgling group. "In addition to this, young boys have to learn the rules and 'games of survival' in an environment where guns, dons and drugs dominate the landscape. Unfortunately some of the boys make their way into a life of crime, acquiring from it a new sense of identity, power and economic security."
It was this situation from which the club hoped to offer a means of escape. Set smack in the middle of two rival communities, it is often a sheer sacrifice to get to the area for practice, says 17- year-old Craig Watson, one of the team members who lives at 35 Lane.
"It isn't somewhere I'd just come on my own because I mostly stay in to keep out of trouble. But I love cricket, and after I asked my mother's permission and got company from a friend I just came across," Craig said.
"The boys were afraid to come out to the field, and whenever they did come they displayed behaviour that suggested they were distracted," Miss McIntosh explained.
In fact early sessions were scanty due to unrest in the area, and had only recently had the full support of the boys, she says. Today the club boasts 36 boys of varying ages as well as a few curious girls.
Ten weeks later, Craig says the programme has changed his attitude to his neighbours, and his future.
"It helps me with my game and helps me to deal with people in a positive way," he said.
His timetable for CXC examinations which he drew up himself now has a permanent slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays for leisure. It is this time which he spends on the field either helping the smaller boys with their techniques or sharing in a game or workshops with his new friends.
He has been so affected by the programme that he now wants a chance to make a difference.
"If I get the chance one day to teach someone apart from schoolwork this is what I'd want to do," he says.
The project receives funding from the United Kingdom-based charity OXFAM, with practice sessions conducted by coaches referred by the Jamaica Cricket Association. The workshops and discussions were conducted by Hylton Grace of "Youth Now" at the Ministry of Health's adolescent health unit.
