THE?BRITISH GOVERNMENT is pumping more than $6 000 into the Stephen Alleyne Sport for Life programme.
Jeremy Browne, 40, the first minister from the British coalition Government to visit Barbados, presented the cheque yesterday to the Sport for Life Centre at Kensington Oval.
“I?am a huge admirer of the Sport for Life initiative and I am delighted at what is being done here in Barbados. It is about helping young people and cricket,and these are two good causes.
“I have always been big about cricket, and it is great to be here at a world-class cricket mecca which is right up there with Lords, the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Eden Gardens,” said Browne, a liberal democrat, who is the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Browne donated £2 000 (BDS$6 355) before an audience that included Sport for Life programme director Kathy Harper Hall, chairman Brenda Pope, and British High Commissioner Paul Brummel.
The funds will go towards paying for a sports psychologist to work with the 56 children in the programme.
“We had a psychologist working with us on an ad hoc fashion, but we have seen the benefit arising out of that, and when the British High Commission said they wanted to make a contribution, we decided that would be one of the most impactful ways that would have immediate benefit for the boys,” Pope said.
At a Press briefing that followed, Minister of Sport Stephen Lashley called the programme which started in 2009 an “excellent initiative” and a path for the development of youth in Barbados.
The programme, which is held every Saturday at the Oval, provides sport, education and healthy lifestyle training to potential young cricketers.
It has been designed to focus on those who are facing challenges in reaching their full potential in the classroom or on the field of play.
