By Okechukwu Onuegbu
Some academic institutions at Europe and America have agreed to partner Anambra State Sports Commission in scouting and training talented sports students from the State.
The Chairman, Anambra State Sports Commission, Mr Patrick Estate Onyedum, disclosed this in Awka, the Anambra State capital, on Thursday, during a press conference geared towards briefing the media on the 2023 State School Sports Festivals.
According to Onyedum, the institutions offer scholarships to talented students and school sports festivals provide a veritable platform for identification and nurturing of potential beneficiaries of that opportunity.
He further noted that Anambra State 2023 Sports Festivals which begun since May 17, 2023 has a total of 610 registered schools, including primary and secondary schools, participating on it across communities and 21 LGAs.
"This grassroots development programme is borne out of our desire to take Anambra State back to its days of glory in sports when we produced national champions in different sporting events including the CKC 1977 team that won the World Academicals in Dublin.
"I assure you that in no distant time, Anambra children will start to find their way to studying abroad through sports sponsorship. The festival is designed to touch every community. That is why we started the preliminaries at community level; schools that win at this stage will compete to emerge as their local government representatives where they will in turn compete at the Senatorial District levels.
"The finalists will then proceed to the State finals which will take place in different venues between June 21 and June 24 where they will compete for glory for their various schools and local government areas. We will not only use sports as a tool for empowering the youth but will use it as a grassroots mobiliser to create awareness on the exploits of solution administration and galvanise support for it.
"We are determined to make Anambra the number one talent hunt destination for national and international scouts in different sporting events. We are confident that at the end of this tournament we would have raised a generation of young athletes that would surprise the country at the National Youth Games scheduled for September this year and by extension at the National Sports Festival scheduled for Ogun State next year," he maintained.
Also speaking, the Anambra State Commissioner for Education, Professor Ngọzi Chuma-Udeh, praised governor Soludo's passion to touch lives of youths in various ways, assuring students that Sports would help them develop their talents, live sustainably and healthy lives.
Earlier, governor Chukwuma Soludo, represented by Anambra State Commissioner for Local Government, Community and Chieftaincy Affairs, Mr Tony-Collins Nwabunwanne, said the government would give fullest support to the sports festivals to develop students spiritually, mentally, physically and financially.