The remarkable education project that is bringing cricket to refugees
Four days ago (May 6) was the 350th anniversary of cricket in Syria. As a statistic, it sounds unlikely, if not impossible to verify, but it is reported that in 1676, in Aleppo, cricket was recorded to have been played for the first time outside of the British Isles.
The source is the diary of Henry Teongue, a Royal Navy chaplain from Worcestershire, who mentioned in a diary entry that he and his fellow travelers had played “krickett” during their stop in the city.
350 years later, this historic moment is being celebrated in the form of a cricket festival in Beirut, between May 8-10, which is raising awareness of the work of the Alsama Project.
Founded in 2020, Alsama was created in order to help the needs of 40 teenagers from Lebanon who were escaping child marriage and forced labour, desperately in need of an education.
An education centre was opened in a Beirut refugee camp and since then four centres have been opened across the region, helping more than 1,000 displaced teenagers and refugees.
The majority of Alsama’s students arrived aged 12-18, illiterate and innumerate. Within six months, the majority can read, write and calculate basic sums. The students study a holistic programme that they co-created themselves, studying subjects including Arabic, art, English, employability skills and maths.
However, one of the most popular subjects on the curriculum is sport – cricket in particular. Alsama’s cricket programme, where boys and girls play together, proudly boasts more than 800 weekly participants, with more serious players regularly attending hardball training sessions and competing in hardball tournaments. It is one of the MCC Foundation’s funding projects, with Alsama co-founder Richard Verity telling Michael Atherton for The Times: “This is one of the great good turns that MCC is doing the world.
“Sarah Fane [MCC Foundation executive director] has seen how refugee cricket turned Afghanistan into a cricketing nation. Exactly the same kind of conditions apply here, except for the presence of Pakistan next door. Beyond that, the same conditions apply and we are absolutely committed to making a new cricketing nation of Syria. I think we can do it.”
Verity, a distant relative of the great England left-arm spinner Headley Verity, helped co-found Alsama along with his wife Meike, and introduced the cricket side of the education offering as a fun way of teaching and instilling responsibility, discipline and leadership.
He told The Times: “I see what it does to refugee teenagers and in particular refugee teenage girls. They have no other competitive team sport that they can play. 90 percent of them say cricket is their favourite sport. They have fallen in love with the game. It’s the only game they play so we are in a monopoly position, but it is still lovely to see.”
This week, players from Alsama’s cricket programme will face a touring team faced by British journalist Peter Osborne, former political commentator for The Daily Telegraph. “We are making a big fuss about that,” Verity said. “We’re claiming the position that this is Syrian cricket returning to its roots after a 350-year hiatus.”
On May 7, members of the touring party visited Alsama’s education centres at the Shatila and Burj al-Barajneh refugee camps in Beirut, places the British embassy has declared as red zones and advises against visiting due to recent bombardments. But a little bit of bravery is a small ask for a one-time visit, considering this is what the people and children in these camps have to live with on a daily basis.
“We registered both the Shatila and the Burj al-Barajneh centres with the UN, which made them visible to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces],” Verity said. “We also registered our playgrounds. So when a bombing is about to happen we get a text message.”
Alsama have worked hard to keep the cricket going during these difficult times, trying their best to find safe places for the children to play even when there’s a threat of bombs being dropped.
“That’s been important for the students’ mental health but also for their attitude to us. If we show we are committed to them, then they return that favour and commit to us. We had advice to leave, but if our students can’t leave and our teachers can’t leave, then it is very important that Meike and I don’t leave either. We will be the last to leave, which is how it should be.”
If you want to find out more about Alsama, get involved or donate, visit alsamaproject.com.
