The Sunday News
Nqwele Dube, @rasmthembo
ZIMBABWE has once again been named the model country in the International Federation of Volleyball (FIVB) African Dream development programme for the second year running.
The award saw the country being afforded the opportunity to host the Dr Ary Graca African Dream Project Festival in Harare last week. While the symposium was open to all the Zone 6 member states only four countries, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, attended the event which ran for three days.
Zimbabwe Volleyball Association president Frederick Ndlovu said they have done well in implementing the African Dream programme hence the Confederation of African Volleyball (CAVB) chose the country to host the festival.
The festival is part of the African Dream Project and involved coaches and young players and also acted as a monitoring mechanism to ensure countries are implementing the programme according to plan. A coaching clinic and coaches symposium was held during the festival.
“There are several benchmarks that a country has to meet in the implementation of the programme that include accounting for the funds, holding coaching clinics regularly and ensuring the centres of excellence are functioning well. I think we learnt a lot during the festival and it will certainly improve both our coaching clinics and ability to account effectively for the full programme,” he said.
The country was again selected the model country last year in the Zone 6 region. The African Dream project was launched in September 2014 by FIVB as part of attempts to improve the performance of African countries at international tournaments.
The international association was worried about the poor performance of African countries at international events and they decided to come up with a 10 year development programme that would focus on grassroots.
“While we won’t see results in the short term, FIVB is aiming at having an African country making a podium finish at international events such as Olympics and World Championships in different age categories. Usually we are ejected from a competition in the first rounds so it was worrying to the international body,” said Ndlovu.
The project involves the imparting of basic volleyball skills to young players aged between eight and 14 years. FIVB provides $80 000 annually for the programme to each country on top of equipment that includes balls and net, t-shirts and expertise.
Ndlovu said the programme is aimed at moulding a complete citizen and not just a good volleyball player as it incorporates other educational areas that include health issues.
Zimbabwe has four centres of excellence, which each has 55 pupils, namely Bulawayo (Eveline High School), Harare (Blakiston Primary), Midlands (Guniea Fowl High) and Manicaland (Barring Primary School).
Ndlovu said the centres are regional and incorporate other provinces in the country with Bulawayo encompassing Matabeleland North and South while Harare also caters for Mashonaland East, West and Central, Midlands and Manicaland share parts of Masvingo.
The centres are manned Artwell Gororo (Harare), Vulindlela Moyo (Bulawayo), Aaron Mutede (Manicaland) and Itsanang Abu-Basutu (Midlands). The overall coordinator of the project is ZVA vice-president, Kenias Kondo.
