Sydney Morning Herald article.
Sydney, Australia - On Saturday night former West Indies greats Michael Holding and Brian Lara will stand in front of 500 people as the guests of honour at the Learning for a Better World (LBW) Trust fundraising dinner at the SCG and discuss the importance of people in the Third World attaining a tertiary education.
Of course, they will talk long into the night about cricket, but Holding, who was known as "Whispering Death" during his 12 years as one of cricket's most feared pace bowlers during the 1970s and '80s, will speak passionately about the virtues of education and how it can help change an individual and improve a community.
"Education is the way forward for any country," said Holding, who studied computer science at the University of the West Indies in the '70s. "The more people get educated the more they can obviously help [their society] go forward.
"Kids without education get themselves into problems; they can't help to support their families so they look to other means to do that and more often than not they're not good means – they're illegal or they get in with the wrong crowd.
"That doesn't help any individual, it doesn't help any society. We have societies not as developed as the so-called First World and [to achieve change] we need for kids to be educated."
The LBW Trust was formed in Sydney in 2006 by a group of high-profile cricket lovers with the ambition of providing scholarships for disadvantaged students in developing nations with the hope they would graduate and contribute in a positive way to their communities and nations.
The trust does not have an office or overheads because the founders decided every dollar needed to be invested in the students, and it has been a successful directive because it is expected by the end of this year the LBW Trust will be supporting 1500 students attending universities in India, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
The chairman of the Trust, Darshak Mehta, said Saturday's fundraising dinner would be attended by a who's who of Australia's political, sporting, business and media spheres, but he was humbled by the willingness of people such as Greg Chappell, Sir Peter Cosgrove, Sir William Deane, Rahul Dravid, Kumar Sangakkara, Malcolm Speed, former primer minister Malcolm Fraser, senator John Faulkner, Adam Gilchrist and Rodney Cavalier to not only put their names to the organisation but to "kick down doors" on its behalf.
"To think we started at zero [students] nine years ago and to get to 1500 this calendar year is something that really pleases us," Mehta said. "It's pleasing that the cricket community in Australia cares and that it recognises we're doing good work in diverse areas and helping people who are so less fortunate."
Mehta said while most of the people involved in the charity would never meet those they've helped, he described the time he met a handful of the students as "emotion charged".
"I was blown away," he said of the meeting two months ago. "Phillip Muhlbauer, from Link Market Services, is one of our greatest supporters and he was with me at a ladies college and we both had frogs in our throat because of the stories we heard ... they begged us never to withdraw the funding because of the difference it had made to their lives.
"I don't think people appreciate the dollar can go a long way and it doesn't really take much to change a person's life through education and opportunity. The people [in the countries where we have students] see us as teaching them to fish and fend for themselves rather than feeding them a fresh fish."
Mehta said there was a greatness about cricket that allowed for a series of charities, such as the LBW Trust, the Steve Waugh Foundation, the McGrath Foundation and Batting for Change – which was established by 24-year-old NSW batsman Ryan Carters – and Sri Lankan great Sangakkara's Foundation of Goodness to "do good".
Carters, who is also an ambassador for the LBW Trust, said he was moved by the bravery of women in countries such as Afghanistan who risked persecution in their pursuit of education.
"Afghanistan is one of the countries where the LBW Trust supports tertiary education and they do have [three] women studying university degrees," he said. "I think that's a beautiful thing to do.
"I've seen video footage of one of the women studying medicine and it was powerful ... she spoke about how her dream was to become a doctor so she can go back to her village and help people live healthier lives.
"There are millions of women around the world showing tremendous courage to chase an education and to help their family."
Cricket journalist and LBW Trust workhorse Mike Coward said cricket had a duty to help people in the less fortunate nation's that had enriched the sport with great athletes and their fanatical support.
"What people forget is that, fundamentally, cricket is a Third World sport; it's played by a couple of First World countries, but it's a developing world sport and that needs re-enforcement," Coward said.
First Published In The Sydney Morning Herald.
