By Anne Duggan
This July 1 saw a unique opportunity for more than 750 local runners to reach out to young Caribbean cricket players.
The Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC) Game of Life fun run and 1 km kids’ race raised $25,000 while helping Canadians to kick off their Canada Day celebrations with a route through some of Ottawa’s most spectacular settings.
CGC Chief Executive Officer Brian MacPherson notes that a big part of his organization’s focus is using sports for development.
“CGC is a unique sports organization,” he highlights. “We run programs for Canadian athletes and also programs in developing countries. Canada is considered a leader in the Commonwealth. We do our part.”
While the CGC has many such programs, like the Herd Boy Program in sub-Sahara Africa, the July 1 event was raising money for the Bowling Out AIDS program. It’s a cricket-based development-through-sport program in the Caribbean for 9- to 19-year-old youth, designed to both increase cricket skills and reduce the incidence and transmission of HIV infections through awareness and education.
“What hockey is to Canada, cricket is to the Caribbean,” MacPherson adds.
The $25,000 will go a long way to fund clinics for local Caribbean coaches where they will be taught drills along with ways to educate youth about HIV. There were an estimated 240,000 people living with HIV in the Caribbean in 2009, which MacPherson defines as an epidemic.
“We are trying to get to the younger generation in order to make an HIV-free Caribbean,” he explains.
This year’s Game of Life fun run was such a success that CGC along with the NCC and race sponsors are now planning for a similar event next year.
Garrett de Jong of Carlsbad Springs won the men’s 5 km with a time of 15:52 followed by Tony Benjamin of Orleans and Bradley Conley of Ottawa. Leah Larocque of Ottawa won the women’s event in 17:31 with Kerri Labrecque and Heather Hillsburg –both from Ottawa – in second and third place.