WHAT: The Spirit of Cricket for the
Common Good is a partnership with
GCU and Cricket Scotland. It has
involved establishing a free grass roots
cricket club for children in an area of
North Glasgow (Springburn) where
cricket is not widely played and an adult
indoor Tapeball league. In 2019-20,
Project Glasgow saw the Wicketz Hubs,
supported by the Lord’s Taverners charity
extended to two further diverse areas
of Glasgow.
WHY: Cricket Scotland’s ambition is
to diversify its core base. To engage
with Black and minority ethnic, migrant
and refugee communities in Glasgow
through sport. The Wicketz hubs were
established to remove barriers to
participation that the BAME community
in Glasgow had identifed.
WHERE & WHEN: Wicketz Hubs
run weekly on Thursdays (Springburn),
Fridays (Pollokshields) and Sundays
(Govanhill) throughout the year.
WHO: The partnership is driven by
Ammar Ashraf, Cricket Scotland
Engagement Ofcer and Nauman Javaid,
Development Ofcer leads the
Wicketz Hubs.
OUTPUTS: 105 Wicketz sessions were
delivered in the three Hubs in 2019-20
and this included 15 life skills workshops.
159 children were engaged across these
sessions. There was also an inter hub
competition and 104 taster sessions in
schools with a further 345 children.
OUTCOMES: Over the course of the
three years, this partnership with Ammar
has allowed GCU to engage with more
communities, to ofer more volunteering
opportunities for our students and has
given the students the chance to play
cricket and made links with the work
of Cricket Scotland and our research.
It has led to other initiatives such as
the Diabetes awareness sessions and
screening for type 2 diabetes in Govanhill
during 2018. Through the participation
initiatives of the Wicketz Hubs and
Tapeball League, more young people
and adults are now playing cricket in
Glasgow, improving their health
and wellbeing and expanding their
social connections.
The Wicketz hubs addresses the
challenge of getting young children active
but they are also about the wider health
and wellbeing of the young people and
the social aspect. As a result of
the partnership:
•SHLS Sport and Exercise Psychology
are working on a student placement
agreement with Cricket Scotland
performance players.
•Cricket Scotland Community
Development Ofcer supported
a Psychology student with their
research into refugee/asylum seeker
access to mental health services.
The Development Ofcers at the Hub
facilitated access to the children at
two of the Project Glasgow training
sessions in October for SHLS
Safeguarding Heathcare Infections
Preventions researchers to gather
more information around child
language brokering (times when
children translate/interpret for their
family and other adults) in health
care. The team did fun activities like
drawing pictures, running around with
stickers instead of formal interviews.
Generally speaking, the main sort of
outcomes of the project were primarily
confrming that brokering is something
that happens and therefore that this
is an important health inequality as
well as of course engaging with lots of
diferent people. The impact of this is
to highlight this as in issue and also to
help the team shape and apply for any
relevant funding for future projects.
One of the researchers said
“my experience the cricket hub
were very friendly and welcoming
and I would absolutely recommend
other teams at GCU to work with
them if they are doing something that
might be fun and interactive for the
children and young people there.”
INTO GCU had set up Saturday social
cricket in the ARC for their International
students who had expressed an interest
in playing cricket but this had to be
cancelled due to the COVID-19 lockdown
but we hope to resume this and students
delivering life skills sessions to the
Wicketz Hubs and Cricket Scotland’s
partnership at our Community Science
events in the new academic year.
COMMUNITY AND PUBLIC
ENGAGEMENT GOALS:
2. Community Engaged Learning;
4. Sustainable Engagement.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
GOALS:
3. Good Health and Wellbeing;
10. Reduced Inequalities;
17. Partnership.
LINKS:
•
Common Good First.
•
Lord’s Taverners Wicketz Hubs.
• Evening Times article about
Project Glasgow.
•
Wicketz Hub Residential.
•
Sport Scotland article.
GCU Student Cricket Team with coach
Ammar Ashraf of Cricket Scotland, 2018.
CPE 2019-20 24
/A2P Poster 9.pdf
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