Sporting Fraternity Hails iLembe’s First Ever District Sports

BALLITO: Delegations representing various sports associations have praised the Mayor of Ilembe and his administration for the district’s first ever Sports Indaba that is being held over two days at Hampshire Hotel in Ballito. The conference is being attended by councillors, senior officials, administrators from the entire Ilembe Family of Municipalities and representatives from sports federations.

Speaking at the conference, the Mayor of Ilembe District Municipality Cllr Thobani Shandu, who graced the event alongside his counterparts who sit at the district’s Youth Arts Sports and Culture, amongst others, committed his administration to implement the resolutions taken by the Indaba, “for the longest of time, the development and promotion of sports in the district has been a process driven and managed without a clear plan, strategy or policy. This resulted in the sport sector getting lesser priority and as such receiving least resources. This has further been exacerbated by the drop in numbers of federations, clubs, and participants in competitive, structured, and affiliated sport in the district and consequently contributing toward moral degeneration, crime, drug abuse and apathy amongst young people.”

Continuing, Mayor Shandu mentioned some of the achievements that the district municipality has attained in the most recent past, this includes youth development strategy. “As a former Youth Leaguer myself, I’ve since charged the administration to rekindle and reposition the sport and recreation to what it is supposed to be, producing elite athletes and creating vibrancy amongst our communities.”

Amongst the strategic areas that the above is aimed at addressing so as to broaden the base of sport and recreation in the district is, namely: mass participation in sports and recreation activities; implementation of compulsory physical education in schools; annual youth camps to cultivate self-esteem and to promote patriotism amongst youth and grass roots sports programmes with a special focus on rural areas.

Despite the teething problems confronting the sport and recreation in the district, overall, stakeholders are upbeat about this inaugural District Sport Indaba and especially with the commitments made by the political leadership.`