De­spite on-field chal­lenges, play­ers on the West In­dies team con­tin­ue to en­gage in off-the-field en­gage­ments aimed di­rect­ly at con­nect­ing with the less for­tu­nate mem­bers of the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty.In the lat­est ini­tia­tive or­gan­ised by team spon­sor, Dig­i­cel, four West In­dies play­ers took time out from their train­ing sched­ule to vis­it pa­tients and their par­ents at the Just Be­cause Foun­da­tion (JBF) of the Wendy Fitzwilliam Pae­di­atric Hos­pi­tal Dig­i­cel has been sup­port­ing the JBF since its in­cep­tion.

Fast bowler, Ke­mar Roach, bats­men, Travis Dowl­in and Dar­ren Bra­vo, along with rook­ie spin­ner, Shane Shilling­ford, vis­it­ed the child pa­tients who are all suf­fer­ing from var­i­ous forms of can­cer. Vice Pres­i­dent and co-founder of the JBF, Noel Joseph, was as en­thused as the chil­dren by the vis­it."It means so much to the chil­dren and their par­ents to have peo­ple of celebri­ty sta­tus come on board and take time out to say hi and to let them know that they're sup­port­ing them through their ill­ness and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion," Joseph out­lined."Vis­its like these re­al­ly help the emo­tion­al side of the pa­tients. It gives them a lift be­cause this is a crit­i­cal ill­ness unit. These kids go through a lot and it is re­al­ly, re­al­ly tough for them," Joseph ex­plained.

Six year-old An­to­nio Hop­kins rais­es his bat tri­umphant­ly as he pos­es with Windies play­ers Dar­ren Bra­vo, Travis Dowl­in, Shane Shilling­ford and Ke­mar Roach.

Pre­vi­ous­ly when the team was in Do­mini­ca for the Third and Fourth Dig­i­cel ODIs, Vice Cap­tain, Dwayne Bra­vo, plus De­nesh Ramdin, Sulie­man Benn and Dale Richards vis­it­ed kids at the Op­er­a­tion Youth Quake which is a home for trou­bled and abused kids.The play­ers in­ter­act­ed and played sev­er­al games with the chil­dren while en­cour­ag­ing them to re­main stead­fast in their ef­forts to stay out of trou­ble. Bra­vo and Benn played bas­ket­ball with some of the boys – while Ramdin opt­ed to play a game of pick up foot­ball with some of the oth­er boys. All the play­ers were giv­en a tour of the mod­est fa­cil­i­ty but, as the play­ers were about to leave, one young la­dy in­sist­ed on meet­ing Dar­ren Sam­my who she said was her favourite play­er. She, along with her friends and an Op­er­a­tion Youth Quake ad­min­is­tra­tor, were tak­en to the team ho­tel to meet the St Lu­cian all-rounder. Up­on meet­ing Sam­my, the young la­dy was speech­less.

Dig­i­cel or­gan­ised to have pho­tographs of her meet­ing with Sam­my print­ed and de­liv­ered to her. JBF is a non-prof­it, char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion found­ed by Noel and his wife Chevaughn Joseph in ho­n­our of their son Jabez 'JB' Joseph who suc­cumbed to a rare form of can­cer at the age of five in 2007.JBF pro­vides prac­ti­cal and emo­tion­al sup­port for par­ents and sib­lings of chil­dren with can­cer and has pro­vid­ed as­sis­tance to fam­i­lies from An­tigua, Grena­da, Guyana, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent–along with Trinidad and To­ba­go. Dr Curt Bod­kyn who is the Caribbean's on­ly pae­di­atric on­col­o­gist is at­tached to the JBF.