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NewsDay

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Save National Youth Games

Opinion & Analysis
Last week, this publication ran a story on preparations for the 2016 National Youth Games that are scheduled for August in Mutare.

Last week, this publication ran a story on preparations for the 2016 National Youth Games that are scheduled for August in Mutare.

The authorities in Mutare have made a passionate plea for foodstuffs to feed athletes from the 10 provinces that will take part in the multi-discipline event as they have failed to raise $1 million to cater for the participants.

The local organising committee says it will try to raise money from affiliation fees of each athlete that will take part, which is $80 per individual.

This is quite a huge figure for the provinces and it basically means that number of participants will be reduced due to these high costs.

Government is fixated on this animal called ZimAsset to such an extent that they are prepared to forget about the schoolchildren and leave the burden to their parents.

We believe that government has a role to play in developing sport as an industry and we are saddened that nothing is happening, financially, from the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture, which should be more focused on the overall development of Zimbabwean sport.

Grassroots sport in the country has suffered because of lack of focus from the leadership of the country and the very fact that a host province has to beg for food shows the dark depths that everything has plummeted to.

We cannot beg for food. That is wrong and it sends the wrong signals to everybody out there. It will be sad for children to go hungry during a week of sporting events and still be expected to produce results.

These are the same athletes, in whatever discipline, that are still expected to represent Zimbabwe at international events and win gold. No, that can’t happen, we have to learn that charity begins at home. Government should set its priorities right and take over the funding of these events going forward and stop overburdening the parent.

Sport in schools is an integral part of the development of children and as such also needs support from the schools, parents and the corporate sector.

We have seen a huge investment by various companies in schools sport of late and we would like to applaud these companies, despite the clear economic decline.

But these sponsorships have mainly benefited athletics, football, netball and basketball.

The most notable sponsor of football is Coca-Cola, who fund the Copa tournament whose finals will be staged in Bulawayo this weekend and has produced international footballers of note.

We have the Arenel Under-17 Championships, whose provincial finals took place last week and the finals will be staged in Harare next month. In netball, Stella Tea has stood by the game and made sure the girl child is not left out.

BancABC, who are known as sponsors of Highlanders, Dynamos, Chapungu and Flame Lily, donated a football kit to the Regina Mundi girls’ football team in Gweru last week.

Nestlé Zimbabwe have their own games that kick off the athletics season each year. We believe that such companies deserve huge tax rebates to enable them to pour more money into schools sport development.