The Sunday News
Shingi Dhlamini
THE Zimbabwe Archery Association is keen to revive archery in Bulawayo.
The sport has been in hibernation for some time now.
The Bulawayo Archery Association is taking the sport to schools. Archery requires discipline and balance which they believe will benefit the children and youths at schools.
It is a sport where the skill of using a bow to shoot arrows is key. The word archery comes from the Latin arcus, meaning bow.
Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity.
A person who practices archery is called an archer hence a leisure spot by a similar name in Bulawayo which is along Bulawayo’s sporting corridor which starts from Bulawayo Golf Club and Zimbabwe International Exhibition Centre to Eastcot Close Road in North End on either side of Mazai River and Robert Mugabe Way.
In trying to revive the sport, there is also a National Schools Archery Programme (NASP) which has now taken the sport to grassroots levels. It has however changed its name to Africa Genesis Archery (AGA).NASP was introduced in Zimbabwe in 2013 by Rob Jackson who is the country co-ordinator and national coach as well as the representative for Zimbabwe in the NASP Africa Federation.
The ZAA established an archery club at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) last year and they have seen a couple of students take it up, Falcon College actively participates in the sport.
Gerome Brock, the president of the Bulawayo Archery Association said they have been trying to reach out to some schools and create awareness of the sport and interest has been shown though they are yet to commit.
Brock said archery is a sport which demands discipline, commitment, balance and focus. The values of discipline they teach the archers can be applied in all aspects of life. With the rise of drug and substance abuse, archery will help curb the scourge of drugs and crime among the youth by keeping them occupied. “We hope to have more schools taking up the sport throughout this year both on regional and international scale. So yes, archery is still very new to this part of the country, but our sincere hope is to see the awareness and participation of the sport grow here.
“We’ve fielded members of the association based in Harare to tournaments around Africa such as the recent tournament in Tunisia, and we hope that in the near future we’ll have archers from Bulawayo participating in tournaments throughout Africa as well,” said Brock.
The difference between AGA and traditional archery is mainly that AGA shoots small genesis bows up to a maximum of 15m while traditional archery shoots re-curve, bare bow, compound bows and at distances between 50m and 70m respectively.
AGA-SA hosts an annual event known as the AGA Africa Championship, which was first held in South Africa in 2014. Since then, they continue to organise the National Championships every year.
“It’s great to see the sport growing in popularity for both AGA and traditional archers, now it’s time to spread it throughout Bulawayo, we are approaching schools and introducing the sport bit by bit,” said Brock.
Traditional archery is suitable for all ages.
