26 Oct 2017

Botswana Tertiary Students Sport Association (BOTESSA) newly appointed executive committee has vowed to keep students from social ills by increasing the association’s activities to run throughout the year.

Speaking at a media briefing recently, BOTESSA president, Herbert Letsebe said the new committee aimed to increase the association’s activities to make students active throughout the year.

Letsebe said the new committee’s evaluation report showed that current activities were not enough.

He said sport was capable of keeping students away from social ills such as drug and alcohol use hence BOTESSA organised a walk today to raise awareness that the association too was a concerned party.

He said the country has an alarming rate of drug use amongst the younger generation, adding that sports was one way of keeping students busy and away from drugs.

He said BOTESSA has learnt that most institutions got eliminated before the top four making then stay the whole year without any activity.

Letsebe said BOTESSA would introduce bracket championships where the three brackets would  compete against each other in the quest to be selected for the national teams to partake in the Confederation of Universities and Colleges of Southern Africa (CUCSA).

He further elaborated that the CUCSA competitions were at national levels, but not as individual institutions hence national teams selection.

Letsebe said bracket championships would give coaches the opportunity to make the best selections for national teams.

He said the association was intending to benchmark in South Africa through varsity soccer and to introduce it in Botswana.

“BOTESSA marathon, Miss BOTESSA, Varsity Netball, Volleyball are amongst activities the association might consider to have,” he said.

For his part, vice president technical, Keorapetse Setlhare said the association intended to ensure that all participating teams from the brackets were ready for the championships.

Setlhare noted that BOTESSA was the feeder of top leagues hence the need for rigorous training. “There is a need to prepare students for top leagues,” he said. ENDS