The Iqra Girls Islamic Academy in Peterborough attended an ECB Diverse Communities funded Team Build/Leadership trip to Grafham Water Outdoor Centre near Huntingdon recently. The event was organised by Cricket East’s Diverse Communities Officer Dave Summers and led by Trained Instructors from the Centre.
Twelve girls from Years 7, 8 and 9 took part with 4 observing fasting during Ramadan. There were also 4 girls from Syria who have started to settle in the City with their families, after leaving their war-torn country having spent time in Refugee Camps.
This sort of event will strive to help Peterborough’s focus to integrate its communities for which the City has also received a national focus.
The girls experienced 7 different physical and mental activities, including a water movement challenge, blindfolded pairs cricket and an assault course to develop attributes including: communication, team togetherness, decision making and confidence.
Each was debriefed and considered closely with their connections to the 4 English Cricket Board Mental Toughness Profile Statements of: fight, resilience, critical moment control and inner drive that can also have wider support focus for future life and career development purposes.
At the end of the whole activity the girls fed back documenting on whiteboards their overall learning/benefits from the day.
Khadija Jaral, Year 7 student at Iqra Academy, said: “We all had great fun taking part in the team building day. We understood that besides being fun, it was important that we worked together to understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We have a shared vision of success on and off the sports field and realise that team work will make our dreams come true.
“Team work has helped us off the field, as I am now a member of the Schools Student Leadership team. I have taken my new-found skills of communication and working together to improve my leadership within the school. The skills you learn are transferrable and I look forward to coaching new students in the future and completing the Cricket Young Leaders qualification.”
It is hoped that, this event can be built in to become part of the modules that form part of a Cricket Young Leader qualification that they can complete at the start of the next school year in September.