Sports leaders for winter camp

Ricky Zililo Senior Sports Reporter
NAPH president Cynthia Khumalo will be the guest of honour at the Sports Leaders Institute of Zimbabwe (SLIZ) sports management winter camp that starts today and ends on Sunday at the Matobo National Park. Seventy participants from Naph, Nash, tertiary institutions and national sporting associations are attending the three-day workshop aimed at brainstorming and thrashing out possible solutions to challenges they face across the board.

The SLIZ is a body whose mission is to facilitate and provide a conducive environment for optimum growth and advancement of the nation’s sports leaders with emphasis on capacity building and professional development in line with existing global trends.

SLIZ director Russell Mhiribidi said equipping teachers at the grassroots was the reason the organisation invited Khumalo.

“If you look at how sport is structured, everything starts at the grassroots level and that’s where we need to have a strong foundation. Athletes start developing at primary school level, hence the need to have Naph present at the workshop,” said Mhiribidi.

“Understanding the fundamentals of administering sport, which is a viable industry, is part of SLIZ’s goals, hence the need to capacitate our administrators. We feel that change in our sporting landscape isn’t going to be an event but a process, which we as SLIZ feel should take place in a free environment where there are no accusations.”

Although the winter management camp was a unique event for sports leaders in the country and the Southern African region, Mhiribidi said it was a regular occurrence in Europe that offered administrators a platform to discuss problems affecting them.

The camp is viewed as a potential game changer in regional sports administration and has been endorsed by the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa, the Africa Union Sports Council Region 5.

Former Zimbabwe soccer international Alois Bunjira, who is now Caps United FC’s marketing executive, is among key speakers at the camp and is set to present a paper on career pathways.

Sebastian Garikai, Zimbabwe’s chef de mission at the AUSC Region 5 Under-20 Youth Games held in Bulawayo last year, microbiologist Kudzai Vera and Johnie Zimba from the Olympic Youth Development Centre in Zambia are among the speakers’ line-up.

Zimba, who is expected in Bulawayo this evening, will make a presentation on youth development in Southern Africa while Vera will talk to participants about nutrition, because diet has a bearing on athletes’ performances.

SLIZ has also invited Luscious Charumbira from the National University of Science and Technology to make a presentation on sports marketing.