Budding stars to showcase talents at Festival
THE Sisa Dukashe Stadium was a hive of activity last Wednesday as over a thousand pupils from 18 primary schools in Mdantsane turned out for the first Blitz Rugby festival in the region.
The festival was hosted by Umzuvukile Sport Development and Management in partnership with Global Performance Management to bring the exciting Get into Rugby project to East London.
“I am more than happy with the turnout. This first event has been an absolute success and the kids are loving it,” said Umzuvukile managing director Mzuvukile Tempi.
“I have been especially impressed with the teachers, most of who are women, and they show a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement to the kids.”
The Get into Rugby programme is a world rugby endorsed programme that is set up to increase the participation of rugby around the world.
Global Performance Management were contracted to set up the project around the country and they have become involved with various rugby unions to do that.
“This is an international programme so Get into Rugby is a World Rugby-endorsed programme. They put this programme together and approached Saru and we then received the project and are running it,” said Global Performance Management project manager Ninette Steenkamp.
“We wanted to start it in places where kids don’t get opportunities, so we focus on just the rural areas.
“We currently have 20 projects around the country and are involved with most of the major unions, but Border have not taken up the project here, so when Mr Tempi approached us about bringing it here we were more than happy.”
The project has three phases set up to get kids to play rugby throughout school.
The first phase is the try phase for Grades 1, 2 and 3, with boys and girls playing together, where the aim is for the kids to try out the game and score a try.
The next phase is the play phase, for Grades 4, 5 and 6, which sees the boys and girls split up and then introduced to contact in a safe way. Here they learn some of the more technical aspects of the game.
The third and final phase for Grades 7, 8 and 9 is the stay phase, where the players are encouraged to stay involved in the game and to keep involved for as long as they can, whether playing or in any other aspect of it.
The kids involved in this festival are all part of the try phase.
“For us this is already something great, as it is in the second biggest informal settlement in South Africa, and to bring rugby here with the amount of kids that are here it will leave a massive footprint,” said Steenkamp.
A second festival will be held at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium end of next month.
“This is the first festival for this year, so we are hoping that as this towards the progresses and we have our next festival more people will get on board and help grow this,” said Tempi.
“Our last festival for the year will be next month and we will have SuperSport here who will be recording the festival, and I believe it will be a great event.”