Community Cricket Making Positive Impact -Prime Minister

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Portia Simpson Miller yesterday (August 22) officially launched the National Community Cricket Championship, aimed at sensitizing communities on the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2007. The ceremony was held on the lawns of Jamaica House.
In her address, Mrs. Simpson Miller said that with the exception of the University of the West Indies, cricket was the most complete regional activity, undertaken by the people of the CARICOM member states. “In the English speaking Caribbean, more persons play football, but far more have deep-rooted sentiments about the sport of cricket,” she remarked.
Congratulating the Social Development Commission (SDC) on taking the bold step of organizing the competition, the Prime Minister emphasized that community cricket impacted positively on unity. “I have often maintained that if you have to fix the country, fixing the community is where it begins.
If we can mobilize the community around Cricket World Cup as the SDC has done through this competition, then what is there to prevent that same spirit from spreading throughout the country,” she told the gathering of officials and young cricketers.
“It is in our communities where discipline, team effort, and solidarity must be built. Sport and in this instance, cricket, is an excellent vehicle for building such attributes,” Prime Minister Simpson Miller said, and encouraged the cricketers to serve as role models for the young children in their communities.
Sixteen teams are in the final leg of the competition, which will commence on September 2 and culminate on November 25 at the newly built stadium in Greenfield, Trelawny.