BULAWAYO, Matabeleland North and South provinces leave for Masvingo today for this year’s edition of National Youth Education through Sport (YES) festival.
RONALD MOYO SPORTS REPORTER
The three provinces completed their provincial games last week where they selected representative teams.
Bulawayo province Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) coordinator Sam Dzvimbu yesterday said they were prepared for the games and were hoping for a better performance in Masvingo.
“We are prepared and the morale has been high in the camp. Clubs have been camping at Bulawayo Polytechnic. We were polishing up one or two things. Otherwise all has gone well and we are expecting to leave for Masvingo tomorrow (today) early in the morning,” Dzvimbu said.
Matabeleland South SRC co-ordinator Lifa Mpofu said due to a number of challenges, the teams that will represent the province have been camping in their respective areas.
“We had a number of challenges, so we did not manage to keep them under one roof for the final preparations and for that reason they have been at their respective areas, in this case Swazi and Mzinyathini High School. We have already forwarded the accreditation. The athletes will be leaving for Masvingo tomorrow (today) and we are going there to compete, not to make numbers,” Mpofu said.
Matabeleland North teams got a boost from Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) who donated 62 sports track-suits worthy $2 000 to the athletes on Monday.
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The track-suits were received by Matabeleland North Provincial affairs minister Cain Mathema who paid tribute to Zimta for supporting the youths.
“We would like to thank the sponsors for this. We also hope that the athletes will go there and win medals. Above all we hope they will learn and at the end of the day excel in whatever they are doing,” Mathema said.
Zimta Matabeleland North provincial officer Themba Sibanda said the motive behind their donation was the realisation that there is need for the provincial representatives to go to Masvingo looking presentable.
“We realised that quite for a long time children have been going to represent the province not looking presentable and this time we believe that this will also boost their confidence,” Sibanda said.
YES is an Under-15 festival that has got three major components: sports, community projects and peer education.
In sports provinces take part in soccer, volleyball for both boys and girls and netball for girls. In community projects clubs will plant trees and this year’s tree is red-leaves rock fig.
In peer education clubs engage in educative activities about HIand Aids through Kicking Aids Out movement games that will be demonstrated through drama activities and singing.
