It was a celebration of girl power this morning when the Scotiabank Kiddy Cricket Festival was launched.

The launch of the festival, which will run from May 18th to 20th at the Weymouth Playing Field, was held at Christ Church Girls Primary, one of three schools entering the program this term, along with Hindsbury Primary and Wills Primary School.

The occasion was made special by the news that Christ Church Girls and Hindsbury are the first two all-girls’ schools to join the Kiddy Cricket program in the Caribbean.

“In all of the 14 years that this program has been running and in all of the more than 700 schools around the Caribbean that have Scotiabank Kiddy Cricket, we have never had an all-girls’ team – until now….We really hope that other girls’ schools around the Caribbean will follow your example,” urged Murray.

The girls at the school, particularly the new Kiddy Cricket team, got a glimpse into their potential future when West Indies women’s team cricketers and twin sisters Kycia and Kyshona Knight addressed the assembly.

Kycia stressed “how important sport is to becoming a well-rounded young lady”, noting it was a lesson she and Kyshona learned well at their all-female alma mater, Springer Memorial.

“It teaches you about discipline for sure – the discipline to actually train and practise to excel at your sport and second, you have to be disciplined to balance sports and school,” said the 20 year old wicketkeeper-batsman.

Kyshona spoke to the girls about how sports taught her the value of patience, particularly after a severe knee injury when she was 16 years old required reconstruction surgery and a lengthy recovery that kept her out of sports for two years.

“I was an active 16 year old girl, I had always been involved in lots of sports and now I just had to stop. However I was not willing to let my dream die so I had to put in a lot of work. I had to be determined and more importantly, I had to be patient,” she declared.