20 Aug 2018

Kang Regional Football Association chairperson and Botswana Football Association national executive committee member for the western block, Thabang Shadikong has called on parents to allow their children to do sport.

In an interview, Shadikong explained that sport had the potential to sustain children in future and diversify the economy of the nation.

Shadikong lamented that she had on several occasions been unfairly treated by some parents who did not want their children to do sport. 

She said some parents feared that doing sport would affect their children’s learning.

She however assured parents that the coaches they had were trained to ensure they enabled children to balance sport with school work. 

“They place great emphasis on education and character development. Even when children are away from home, the coaches provide parental guidance to ensure they groom these children into responsible adults,” she said.

Through sport, she explained that children also learned critical life skills like time management, assertiveness and self-discipline as they had to control themselves and adhere to strict time schedules.

“These valuable skills learnt through sport tend to facilitate development in other areas of life of an individual,” she said.

Shadikong asserted that there was no way sport could be divorced from education because they both targeted human development. 

She said her vision was to see talented young people from her region eke out a living through sport. 

She said Botswana has made tremendous strides in the international sporting arena through the likes of Amantle Montsho, Isaac Makwala and Tsotso Ngele, among others, but stressed that just like Brazil, the nation could export more talent to Europe and the rest of the world. ENDS