Lowveld T20 Fundraiser

How Did We Get Here?

Foundations

Mark Burbidge, Nomatter Mhangara, and Edmore Ngwenya from Chiredzi Christian Church sparked a para-ministry called the Christian Athletic Association of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) a name which is in need of some revision. They branched out and started a cricket ministry in partnership with Chiredzi Government Primary School. The CAAZ coaching staff have two main goals:

• to reach and teach the community about the love of God, and
• to run a quality coaching program.

Vision

The vision behind the CAAZ cricket ministry has been well received by the primary school and some high school boys in the community. But you can only cut a pie into so many pieces. The coaching staff had such a great response that they saw the need to look beyond their limited resources by holding a beginner coaching clinic to empower more passionate coaches.

Nomatter Mhangara and Edmore Ngwenya taught both theory and practical aspects of the game. As a result of that they had over ten enthusiastic coaches ready to go. But again it had to go beyond just getting enthusiastic coaches. The vision to develop cricket in the community was becoming a necessity. With help from a South African group from Living Rivers Church in Pennington, KZN, lead by George van der Merwe, they caught the vision and were able to resuscitate the cricket nets at the Chiredzi Government Primary School. After they completed their project they blessed the ministry with cricket kit that would carry the ministry to success.

For the sake of the ministry, we knew we had to expand and get more people involved in cricket development. As a result the kids T20 was birthed. The desire is to put on an annual fundraiser to raise resources to improve the standard of the sports grounds and from there, use the proceeds to help schools develop their cricket programs. Our first year was met with challenges along the way but by and large it was a success and the kids had fun. A huge thanks to all our sponsors Sabie Meats, N&R bakery, Digisigns, Chiredzi Christian Church, COAL Chiredzi, Chiredzi Lions Club and Chiredzi Government Primary School for hosting.