ZASAD provides life skills through sport
THE Zimbabwe Academy for Sport for All and Displays (ZASAD) has pledged to bridge the gap in various institutions by providing life-changing skills through sport.
The academy was formed in Janurary 2020 with the aim of providing education and training to schools, colleges, churches, community clubs, government and nongovernmental organisations in sport for all programmes, recreation for wellness, mass displays as well as life skills to youths in the face of diseases and unemployment.
In an interview with NewsDay Sport, ZASAD director Richard Gotora said although the feedback anticipated is still low due to the COVID-19 pandemic, greenshoots were emerging.
He said some of the training programmes aimed at improving people’s livelihoods and reviving some of the sporting activities were no longer vibrant in most schools.
“We were motivated by a number of circumstances among them, wellness in our citizenry has become everyone’s preoccupation and we have seen it compelling to provide methods, knowledge and organisational skills to pursue it through sport. We also discovered a knowledge gap in the schools curriculum — that of the learning area known as mass displays. There are no textbooks and training about it so we are there for them,” Gotora said.
He added: “We expect to service our education systems with all they require with regards to mass displays, reviving drum majorettes activities in schools and communities as these are almost going into extinction, provide guidance and skills to community clubs and churches among others for running sport for all and recreation leagues for competition and Wellness purposes.”
“We also offer interventions such as entrepreneurship and activities that mitigate hardships that are a result of unemployment and other social ills.”
“We run short courses as per demand. Courses on our curriculum range from foundation courses covering organisation, leadership and management concepts. This is followed by levels one and two of specialisation in mass displays, drum majorettes, sport for all and wellness and life skills,” Gotosa said.