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Re-building a community

March 18, 2015
Re-building a community

The Kinglake Ranges Teenage Cricket Participation Program is helping to rebuild a community by increasing community cohesion and physical activity through cricket.

Receiving funding from the State Government through Cricket Victoria’s Harmony in Cricket project, Kinglake has continued to develop the program over the 2014-15 season.

Having been affected by the 2009 bushfires, the community saw a significant decrease in junior participation and a significant level of disengagement in the community.

Over the past few years, the Kinglake Cricket Club, assisted by Brad Quilliam, has been working extremely hard to rebuild their community through the teenage cricket program.

Targeting teenagers, Quilliam found that indoor cricket, because of its fun and action-packed nature, had been highly successful among the group and has assisted in rebuilding its playing list.

It started out with Quilliam taking participants to the indoor cricket centre once a week to help them get back into sport.

From there the program and interest grew and focussed not only on developing cricket skills but also on developing the participants as young adults.

“We wanted to build other activities around the program, so we have taken participants on a camp, have held a T20 game that has involved the emergency services and have held other events similar to these,” Quilliam said.

“We just want to keep the teens engaged in a fun environment and we want to not only develop their skills but also want to develop them as young people and get them back into the community.

“The smiles on their face are starting to appear, so it has been successful initiative with the kids even winning the indoor premiership last season, which was a super effort.”

Quilliam notes that he has had previous experience in living in a disaster affected town.

“During my youth I lived in a small Victorian community called Cockatoo which had experienced the devastating 1983 Ash Wednesday Bushfires,” Quilliam said.

“Many of the youth during that time disengaged from the community like ours have and didn’t reconnect causing many social and health issues.

“One of the successful activities after the 1983 Ash Wednesday Bushfires was an effort made to reconnect the youth through sport which, saw a large participation of both teenage males and teenage females playing sport together and reconnecting with their community.”

The team’s indoor cricket season recommences after Easter.

To keep updated on the program, click here.

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