Vusumuzi DubeRutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Correspondent
THE Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, Kirsty Coventry on Friday officially launched the Insiza Sport and Recreation Development League as well as the rehabilitation of Filabusi Country Club which was initiated by Progress Mine and Prunella Investments.
An injection of US$60 000 has so far been made on the league and is set to benefit 23 wards. So far 40 referees have been trained to handle the games, 23 football kits were procured, one for each ward and eighty footballs were distributed at the occasion. A total budget of US$ 1 500 000 has been proposed for the completion of the Filabusi Country Club.
In a speech read on her behalf by Chief director in her ministry, Benson Dube, Minister Coventry said “The colonial structure of Sport and Recreation was deliberately exclusionary of a large constituency of talent especially that which situates in rural areas where most talent resides.
The Insiza Sport and Recreation sport programme will address the structural deficiencies and weaknesses and act as the genesis of a process of fully integrating rural and other communities into mainstream sport and recreation.”
The Community Sport and Recreation Club system is in line with an attempt by the Government to not only introduce organised sport in previously disadvantaged communities, but also to integrate previously marginalised talent into mainstream sport and recreation activities of the Nation.
“The Ministry of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation has taken a deliberate trajectory to revive 50 country clubs in the country because these clubs provide Sport and Recreation for the children thus diminishing the extra time to engage in drug and alcohol abuse. Zimbabwe has, of late, witnessed an upsurge in crime, and some researchers have suggested that this is a direct result of lack of sport and recreation.”
Meanwhile, Progress Mine and Prunella investments manager Bakhokheli Nkomo said the development comes as a migratory measure to the sporting challenges faced by the Insiza community.
He also spoke about the company’s initiative that will see the rehabilitation of the Filabusi Country Club into a state of the art facility. The facility is intended to host national events with Olympic size swimming pool, the boxing club, the tennis courts, basketball courts and netball courts. The complex will also host music lessons, drama and a recording studio.
— @nyeve14
Online Reporter