Charandura wants home grown solutions

FORMER Bulawayo sprinter and National University of Science and Technology graduate, Nyasha Charandura, has set his sights on domestic solutions for sport.

Charandura is running a sports science and fitness workshop in Zambia which has attracted, among others, Zambian football legend Christopher Katongo.

He is the strength and conditioning coach for Tanzanian side Azam FC. He has also been involved in Caf A coaches’ training in Tanzania apart from conducting workshops in that country and Zimbabwe.
Charandura runs Major Sports Institute.

“Basically it’s a positive stride for us as Major Sports Institute to be part of the new age of bringing home grown solutions to our own problems,” said Charandura, whose biggest advantage is that he understands the backgrounds of Southern African players in so far as their diets and off the field relate to sport.

He says African problems need an Afrocentric approach to get solutions.

“African problems call for Afrocentric solutions and if we check one of the challenges African teams and sport face, it’s consulting people who don’t know anything about our problems,” said Charandura.

Foreign coaches or experts are always seen as ready solutions for African sports problems.

Charandura says over the past five years they have engaged several football federations with the aim to transform African football through the spirit of Pan Africanism of bringing home grown solutions through applied sports science solutions.

Charandura has been running a five day physical fitness workshop in Lusaka, Zambia with over 20 participants.

At the official opening of the event, Football Association of Zambia boss, Andrew Kamanga said his management was embracing modern football approaches which he believes will help in the development of football.

Charandura said the presence of home grown instructors in football was good and made adaptation easier as they appreciated their own set-up hence modern technologies will take the African game far.

Speaking at the function he said recently they had engaged Fifa on the introduction of Video Assisted Referees (VAR) technology and Global Positioning System for clubs. This he said was part of modernizing the game in Zambia, a country that has won the Cosafa, Cecafa and African titles.

Kamanga said they had invested their efforts in upskilling coaches for both national teams and clubs and Masauso Tembo, Ian Bakala and Wedson Nyirenda were taken outside the country to do their badges.
Bakala and Tembo were in Morocco for their Caf A badges.

Bakala played for Caps United in Zimbabwe.

Nyirenda, a former Kaizer Chiefs striker, attended a Caf Pro Licence.

“Given the dynamism of global sports today, there is no way any country can improve its game without adapting to modern trends. We have just recently signed up for a programme to provide Global

Tracking System equipment for our Super League teams through support from Fifa. This too is an acknowledgement of the demands of the modern game,” Kamanga was quoted by Zambian media as saying.

Katongo, who is the Under-23 national team coach, is attending the seminar with Billy Mwanza and Donwell Yobe who are Under-17 and 20 coaches respectively.