Identify sports talent from the grassroots – Mulanje District Council

Mulanje District Council through the district sports office has emphasized the importance of identifying sports talent from the grassroots, saying that is the way through which sports can develop in Malawi.

District sports officer for Mulanje, Rita Rino, made the remarks over the weekend when she officially closed a week long orientation meeting for four zonal sports committees aimed at equipping committee members with knowledge on how they can diversify sports activities as well as promote new talent.

According to Rino, one reason why some sports disciplines in the country are not developing is because people who are well skilled in such disciplines remain undiscovered (mostly in remote areas) thereby filling the disciplines with those that cannot put the sport on the map.

“In my opinion I don’t think Malawi has no good sportsmen because honestly Malawi really does. The only problem that is there is that most of the skilled people live and wait to die unwatched; meaning that we lose a lot of sport resources before we even use them,” said Rino.

She said that is why her office decided to equip the committees with knowledge on how they can identify talent and nurture it for the sake of further appreciation by teams and promoters, as the committees are responsible for developing sports at the most basic level.

One of the district sports office’s roles is to develop all sports disciplines equally in a district, by among other ways, ensuring that young people with talent are being encouraged and given opportunities to showcase their skills.

Commenting on Rino’s sentiments, one of the members of Namphungo zonal sports committee, who is also a teacher at Chisawani Primary School, Alfred Luhana commended the district sports office saying it has taken a broad new direction.

Said Luhana; “for a long time our schools have had competitions in some sports disciplines, but all along there was never interest from the sports office to encourage the young sportsmen that did well in these competitions. Now that the office has equipped us with knowledge on how we can sale our young stars, we expect sports to prevail in the district.”

*Report by Sam Majamanda