11 Aug 2015

International Working Group (IWG) on Women and Sport Co-chair expressed delight towards Botswana’s commitment to improve the status-quo on women in sports in the country and Africa.

Dr Carole Oglesby said this during the IWG Secretariat and WASBO roundtable discussion on Issues affecting women and girls in Sport: Best practice.

The event was held at the University of Botswana over the weekend (August 8-9). She said this is an initiative that the country should be proud of as it will create conducive environment for women who participate in sport.

The visiting co-chair said although Africa has always had representative they have always lacked consistency that Botswana has shown and said that she is confident that the conference billed for 2018 will leave a legacy through the policies to be put in place to enhance women participation in sport. “The women involved in preparations are young and charged.”

Dr Oglesby said after all the day’s discussion she had observed that there were certain areas that could be improved such as establishing athletes support groups as such would afford the athletes a platform to interact and share ideas on how to deal with certain issues.

The expert in women’s gender studies in sport and sport psychology said such helps the athletes to develop mechanisms to talk to one another.

For his part Dr Leapetswe Malete who chairs the Athlete Welfare Committee believes that developing a woman is developing a nation, including women in sport.

Dr Malete said there was need to also include other role players other than the associations such as community pioneers or champions that could help enhance women participation in sport.

Dr Malete added that there is need to set target, run programmes and measure them and as such would guide them if they were winning or not.

Most of the panellists felt that there is need for gender balanced association committees as such would help in advancing issues of female sports persons and their needs.

The discussion also included developing more female officials such as coaches as such also helps in dealing with female sports needs and appreciating their health issues.  ENDS