Boxers championing environmental cleanliness

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Tadious Manyepo, Sports Reporter

LOCAL boxers have taken it upon themselves to champion cleanliness in the communities they live.

The boxers, technical staff and administrators last Friday joined the rest of the country in cleaning the environment when they swarmed Matongo Shopping Centre in Mabvuku to clean and campaign for cleanliness.

The first Friday of each month is dedicated for national clean-up and the sportspersons are not lagging behind.

Speaking on the sidelines of the clean-up campaign, Zimbabwe’s pioneer female professional boxer Monalisa “Queen of the Jungle” Sibanda said sport can only thrive in clean set-ups.

“We know of fellow boxers and other sportspersons who have quit sport because of health complications associated with dirty environments,” she said.

“Who knows, maybe those people could have won medals for the country in major sports competitions like the African Union Sports Council Region 5, African Games or Olympics but they couldn’t pursue their dreams.

“That is why it is always good for sportspersons and ordinary citizens to join hands and see to it that the environment they live in is always safe.

“We are saying everyone has a responsibility to ensure that the environment is clean. We have lost athletes and citizens due to unsafe environments because of our own actions, so let’s be safe.”

African Boxing Union welterweight champion Aliya Phiri said a clean environment is all boxers need to thrive.

“Imagine waking up and trying to go for a road run and see that the road is full of garbage. The litter will also provide refuge for pathogens which cause diseases and that’s not safe,” he said.

“We are saying let’s unite as sportspeople and the citizens to make sure that our environment is safe and clean. Unsafe environments do not only affect sportspeople. They have a negative impact on the general well-being of people whether one is a sportsperson or not. We are saying together we can do it.”

The cleaning initiative was put together by the Zimbabwe National Wrestling and Boxing Control Board ZNWBCB) who collaborated with the Environment Management Agency and the Zimbabwe Republic Police.

ZNWBCB acting chief executive officer Priscilla Kadungure said boxers and wrestlers will continue playing a leading role in cleaning the environment.

“What we want to achieve at the end of the day is excellence. We need a clean operating environment and we are saying the boxers and wrestlers should also be actively involved in cleaning the environment,” said Kadungure.

“We are going to implement a lot of initiatives aimed at safeguarding and keeping the environment clean because we know what a clean environment does to our sport.”