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Ellina Mhlanga Sports Reporter
IT appears 2021 will be a busy year for the African Union Sport Council Region Five member countries with several meetings expected to take place on how they will proceed with the work on the establishment of the Regional Sport Museum.
Hopes had been that some progress would have been made this year in terms of the plans and work that needs to be done towards the establishment of the museum to be housed in Zimbabwe.
But with the coronavirus outbreak, it has led to some delays.
The National Sports Stadium has been identified as the site.
Addressing the media recently, Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation Minister, Kirsty Coventry, said they are now looking at meeting with their regional counterparts next year on how they would proceed.
“We were supposed to kick-off the planning for the museum this year. But unfortunately due to Covid-19 we couldn’t have the regional partners travelling as most countries shutdown their borders.
“So for 2021 the plan is to be having and holding those meetings. Having the designing aspect finalised by architectures along with ensuring that we have the right curators.
“It’s a regional museum, so each of the countries will have their own specific items that they would want shown, so there goes quite a lot of planning. So that’s what will be done in 2021 and then hopefully opening the museum in 2022, depending on the year. Next year, by the end of the year, we would hope that it would be open,” Coventry said.
The AUSC Region Five member states are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The museum aims to capture all the historic milestones and proud moments of the region’s sporting heritage.
Different activities are expected to take place at the museum, including exhibitions.
“Right now as a region, if we look as a region, there has been quite a few of us who have hosted say the African Games but there is really nowhere to showcase that.
“We also have nowhere to showcase our champions from the Africa Games or even from the Regional Games.
“And so we really want the museum to be the representative of being able to house our athletes from around the region that have done well as well as having the storyline of ourselves as a region. Where we have been, what we have done, what we have accomplished at the different continental Games, as well as Olympic Games and to bring all that together.
“So that’s why I was saying in 2021 that storyline, because it’s a regional museum it’s not just Zimbabwe. We have to sit down with all the other countries to try and figure out exactly how that storyline will be told.
“What exactly are the pertinent points that the museum needs to house along with what exactly is the overall goal for the museum,” said Coventry.
Zimbabwe won the bid to house the museum ahead of Zambia.
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