Main Business Activity - London based charity which uses cricket to aid the development of young people

Project Outline - To develop a state-of-the-art cricket set for use at home and abroad

A charity group who use cricket to help improve the lives of young inner city people has been bowled over by the level of support given from an LDA-funded project.

Cricket for Change has been providing cricketing opportunities to young people either living on housing estates or living with disability for almost 30 years.

The charity sought the support of KNOWLEDGE CONNECT earlier this year to help them develop a plastic cricket set that was both cost effective to produce and would appeal to teenagers to use.

Andy Sellins, Cricket for Change's Director of Programmes, said that while there were many plastic cricket sets available on the market, they were all aimed at the under 12 age group.

'When we are working with inner city teenagers, it is really hard to get them to use equipment that they consider to be for little kids,' he said.

'We wanted to come up with an affordable product that we could use both here in the UK and when we go away to work with disadvantaged children in countries such as Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone and Rwanda' he said.

'Through KNOWLEDGE CONNECT we were put in touch with London Metropolitan University who helped us design this state-of-the-art Street20 cricket set.'

'We are already in talks with cricket associations and other major supporters of our charity to produce these sets for use in the UK and overseas.'

Andy spoke highly of the help his charity had received and the people involved and commented, 'I have nothing but praise for KNOWLEDGE CONNECT and the people we worked with. It was an incredibly constructive experience.'