03 Feb 2019

The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) eQUIP Internship Programme which has benefitted Botswana aims at building capacity in the Commonwealth Games Association.

Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) chief executive officer, Tuelo Serufho said this in an interview on Friday.

He said one of the requirements was to partner with a local university, as they did with the University of Botswana.

Serufho said when the programme started interns from Canada were deployed in different countries, including Botswana. 

The arrangement, he said, did not benefit countries because the Canadians returned back with all the acquired skills.

He said top performing students in different courses were picked to help the Commonwealth Games Association, adding that they had engaged three interns in different years, and that one of them was now a full time employee at BNOC.

He said the current intern was under communication and marketing, and that he would only focus on their social media platforms.

Furthermore, he said the programme was a welcome development, given that BNOC does not have enough staff.

“If you look at our marketing and communications department, we have a lot of activities like Olympic Games celebrations, the Olympic Values Education Programme, training of coaches and workshop, all these need a lot of manpower, so if we have interns they can help in those areas,” he said.

Meanwhile, interns from Botswana, Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Lesotho, Malawi, England and Wales attended a two-day debriefing workshop at Avani on Thursday. Ends