By Wilfred Golden
Minister of sports and youth affairs,Uchizi Mkandawire has emphasized the need for leaders to take a leading role in the development of different sporting activities in the country as this will help in developing Malawi across all sectors.
The minister retaliated that through sports, alot of people are able to generate huge amounts of money.
He was speaking this on Saturday March,23, 2024 when he presided over the Limbe Leaf tobacco company 2023 under 12 and 15 tournament finals in Lilongwe.
“What I mean is that, basically there is quiet alot that is happening in sports, whereby those that are participating as athletes are able to make earnings in form of money, but we also have football administrators, we have refrees, we have coaches, so this is a source of employment and other people which also do events management they find space,” Mkandawire said.
He also highlighted that when we talk of sports supporting various sectors one of it is tourism, as people travel from one destination to another alot of people generate revenue as well.
Managing Director of Limbe Leaf tobacco company Don McAlpin, articulated that Limbe Leaf has been investing heavily in this tournament in order to ensure that no primary school in communities lacks the opportunity to better its sports program or expose its players to the opportunities that sports affords.
“During the tournament last year, the company noticed that due to the shortage of sporting equipments in our schools, schools were willing to do anything to get into these positions and secure prizes, especially the sports kits, even under declaration of ages of players.
“To encourage good sportsmanship and maintain integrity of the tournament the company increased the budget of the tournament from $11,000 last year to $20,000 so that more teams could be afforded the opportunity to access the sporting kits and boots,” he said.
He also added that this 40th year tournament is an indication of the company’s commitment towards sports and education development in the local communities and they ensure that children are positively engaged inside and outside the classroom so that they are not used for labor anywhere including farms.
“Limbe leaf the past 10 years has invested alot in child labor prevention and detection programs to the point where we have almost eradicated it across our value chain, this is why the tournament continues to have our support each year as it is instrumental in preventing child labor in our communities by keeping children in our farming communities positively engaged,” McAlpin highlighted.
The tournament has been running for 39 years as of 2019 and they resumed this year after 3 years break due to outbreak of Covid-19 making this its 40th year of commemoration.
This year the preparation games involved 470 primary schools from rural and urban Lilongwe and the total number of participating students is 34,440 pupils.
During the tournament teams in position 1 to 4 were able to secure a sporting kit for their school and other prizes.
The following are the prizes in different categories;
Under 12 netball winners, Balango’mbe.
Under 12 Football winners, Tsabango Primary School.
Under 15 netball winners, Chidzingwe Primary school.
Under 15 Football winners, Kasiya Primary school.
Player of the Tournament, Under 12 netball ( Eunice Mataka from Balang’ombe).
Player of the Tournament, Under 12 Football ( Lloyd Zimba from Tsabango).
Player of the Tournament, Under 15 netball ( Patricia Songola from Chidzingwe).
Player of the Tournament Under 15 Football ( Mwamadi Hawadi from Kasiya).
Overall player of the Tournament, Netball ( Caroline Greenwell from Ndaula).
