The partnership is being driven by Ammar Ashraf Cricket Scotland Community Engagement Coordinator (CPE) and Susan Grant, GCU Community and Public Engagement Coordinator. It has involved establishing a free grass roots cricket club for children in a diverse area of North Glasgow (Springburn) where cricket is not widely played, an adult indoor Tapeball league and using cricket to engage kids about physics at community science events. The 'Wicketz Hubs' and wider partnership have created community-engaged learning opportunities for GCU students.
What skills and resources were you able to draw from the community for this project?
We have had support from the community in terms of venues, water and fruit and help with the life skills workshops. Several partners have now joined to grow the wicketz hubs.
The challenges
The hubs was established to remove barriers to participation that the BAME community in Glasgow in Glasgow had identified. They are addressing 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. The hubs are in less affluent areas of the City so are free all.
Addressing the challenges
Cricket Scotland’s ambition to diversify its core base is leading the way for sports governing bodies to drive a rate of change and modernise through engaging more women and multi ethnic communities and they are doing this through participation initiatives such as the Wickets Hub and their newly launched Project Glasgow which has has seen the expansion of the Wicketz hub project to two further diverse areas of the City (Pollokshields and Govanhill) supported by GCU. The Hubs and the Tapeball League are getting people fit and active and making social connections. Some have previously played cricket and some are new to the sport. All are from a range of backgrounds and cultures and are being brought together in teams through cricket. The partnership has allowed GCU to engage with more communities, to offer more volunteering opportunities for our students and has given more students the chance to play cricket. It has led to other initiatives such as Diabetes awareness sessions and screening for type 2 diabetes. We are still getting the word out there through local schools, organisations, participating in local events and hopefully growing the numbers in the wicketz hubs.
The achievements
More young people playing cricket, evidencing cricket as a way to bring people together through sport, more students involved in volunteering and community engagement, bringing the work of Cricket Scotland into our research at GCU.
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