PMJ Santa Maria students participate in the Cricket project

Reporting by Paulo Vitor Campos

Sport Wells

Cricket remains firm, covering as many people as possible from the community of Poços de Caldas. The newest entity that has the teachings of Professor Matthew Featherstone and co is PMJ Santa Maria. Boys and girls train at least twice a week and dream of joining the Poços de Caldas teams that today have become a reference in the sport. During the week, professor Matthew Featherstone, together with Richard Avery and Nexo Engenharia owner Gustavo Bertozzi, was at PMJ distributing the project’s t-shirts to the students, who train at the Military Police barracks, located in the neighborhood. “This is one of our newest projects and it has been working very well thanks to the efforts of everyone who has embraced cricket,” said Featherstone. About 90 children from PMJ Santa Maria are participating in cricket classes. “Our aim is to grow more and more and make the sport a craze among the wells of Caldenses”, continued Featherstone, who stressed that every three months a new project is created in the city. According to him, in a short time cricket will be taking over the city with a significant number of practitioners. Featherstone also highlights that everything is possible thanks to the support of important partners such as Nexo, Rotary, Hotel Minas Gerais and DME, among others. “We have more than 20 projects in the city and the support of these partners is of fundamental importance.
For the coordinator of PMJ Santa Maria Miriam Bernardes, the introduction of sport among students was very important in the development of each one and a very important behavioral change. Miriam knows the cricket project well in the city, as she was part of the team of teachers at the Municipal School, where she received her first classes in Poços de Caldas. “We have several PMJ activities for our students, but cricket is currently the one they like the most. The instructors know how to work, they encourage the boys and this makes a big difference in their lives, ”said Miriam.

T-shirts
The delivery of the project’s t-shirts was carried out amidst a lot of euphoria. All were properly uniformed and soon went to practice for the day on the court of the PM battalion. For Gustavo Bertozzi, there is no money that pays to see such joy printed on the face of each boy and girl. “This project is fantastic because it fulfills many purposes. In addition to dealing with the child at this stage more likely to assimilate good practices, it brings education in a playful way, in which the child learns to have discipline, works a lot in sports, physical education, and within this process all learning, knowledge, the search for goals and new knowledge are completely well established ”. Bertozzi adds by pointing out that cricket has everything to transform the lives of many children like those of PMJ Santa Maria.

Cricket in Poços

Started in 2011, through Englishman Matthew Featherstone, coach and captain of the Brazilian male team and official representative of cricket in the Americas, the Cricket Project Poços de Caldas was born with the aim of popularizing the sport, which is the second most practiced in the world. With great acceptance from entities and the population, the program contributes to the local community, offering sports development, recreation and discovering new sports talents. The sports project currently serves students from 6 years of age, who attend classes free of charge in centers such as the Association for the Assistance of the Visually Impaired (AADV), Casa do Menor, Municipal School, Caldense Athletic Association, Bem Viver Project, Municipal Park, between others.