Chance to Shine Street clubs are a place for belonging. Aston Street Cricket Club is a place where young people are supported, included and inspired through cricket, vastly improving their mental wellbeing.
The Aston Street programme is one of 23 in the wider Birmingham area and provides young people a safe space to talk. They’re helped by coach Waqas Khan, a qualified mental health practitioner.
“These kids are lacking in self-esteem, lacking in self-confidence. Young people have felt isolated,” said Khan. “There is a stigma in Aston. Mental health is not talked about, so it was important for us to engage in that.”
One participant, Bilawal, 13, has received support from Khan after he lost his uncle to cancer. “My uncle was a father figure to us,” said Bilawal. “I think about him a lot, but when I come here, I play cricket and talk and have fun.
“I think I’ve progressed a lot, every week I’ve been coming, and it’s been helping me.”
Now, Bilawal hopes to open a pharmacy to help anyone who may be in a similar situation to his uncle, and name it after him.
The club began focussing on mental health following the COVID-19 pandemic, given the impact lockdown had on young people. According to Mind, 88% of young people agreed that loneliness from lockdown caused a decline in their mental health.
Through Chance to Shine programmes, this loneliness crisis is being addressed. Last year 96% of all Street participants felt like they belong at their Street club and 87% felt closer to their community.
Khan, alongside fellow Chance to Shine coach Siraj Ali, holds sessions where they talk to participants individually. “It’s about guiding these kids to the right path,” explains Ali. “As much as we all enjoy cricket, it’s about making them good human beings as well.
“These kids are some of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met in my life.”
One participant who has taken this guidance and seen a profound upturn is Shawaib, 13. “In primary school I got suspended one time; ever since I’ve been coming here my behaviour has turned one way – right up, it’s become a lot better.”
“We’re all young people, and things can become challenging for us and what I love about cricket, is that it’s just a way for me to be myself.”
The next step for Aston’s cricketers has been to form a hardball team with the nearby Saltley Street club, creating a new opportunity to play a new form of cricket while also building a wider community.
If it wasn’t for these fully funded sessions, most of these participants would never have played Street cricket, let alone formed a hardball team. According to Khan “these kids needed an opportunity, and Chance to Shine gives that regardless of where you live or where you’ve been brought up.”
