Coutts Helps Bring Healing Power Of Cricket To Rwanda

Tom Burroughes

8 May 2017

A cricket club of hopes to raise more than £20,000 to build a stadium for the game in Kigali, Rwanda, aiming to harness the healing power of sport to help rebuild a country torn apart by civil war and genocide.

Coutts Cricket Club is backing work of the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation to bring cricket facilities to the African country. The Rwandan cricket captain, Eric Dusingizimana, recently performed the feat of batting in a cricket net for a record-breaking 51 hours to raise funds for the foundation. Taking inspiration from this, the Coutts team hosted its own 51- hour sponsored net at the Oval ground in London. Some 20 members of the cricket team will also fly to Rwanda in October to join the opening ceremony, take part in the opening tournament, and each carry out five days of volunteering work by supporting local community projects.

“The stadium and sports centre will be run on a not-for-profit basis to ensure its continued service to the community and any surplus funds will be invested back into local sports based development programmes,” Howard Cornwell, tour organiser of Coutts Cricket Club said.

Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation’s vision is to create a green and pleasant environment where Rwandans of all ages can develop their cricket and use these skills into their wider lives.
The project is to be constructed using predominantly local labour sourced through a Rwandan government-led social protection programme, the Vision Umurenge Project.