Fivb’s African dream project comes to Zim

Sport
Thirty-two representatives from seven Africa Zone VI countries took part in the two-day Federation of International Volleyball (FIVB) African Dream

Thirty-two representatives from seven Africa Zone VI countries took part in the two-day Federation of International Volleyball (FIVB) African Dream Pre-implementation clinic, which the country successfully hosted at Cresta Oasis Hotel last week.

By Our Staff

Mark Tennant, an FIVB instructor who is part of the FIVB Development Commission conducted the clinic, which marked the introduction of a landmark project to countries such as Mozambique, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland and Zi-mbabwe.

This project is an invention of FIVB President Ary Graca’s vision to create a global volleyball development trend by setting up centres that will be used to develop identified athletes at a young age and arranging all the keys for their involvement later on to their corresponding youth national teams.

Zimbabwe Volleyball Association secretary general Ringisai Mapondera expressed confidence in the project, which is similar to the one his association has already implemented locally.

“It’s an interesting project by FIVB and very similar to the one that we already have here; we are at an advantage because we already have talent identification centres in all our provinces, so this programme starts as soon as we receive our first batch of equipment set to arrive in the next few weeks,” he said.

“Of course the pre-implementation clinic was a huge success because we had eight representatives including four coaches and four officials. We are going to get a lot of financial and material support from FIVB which can see us assemble a super team that can conquer the world in the next 10 years,” he added.

ZVA has its own long-term project called the Great Zimbabwe Talent Identification Programme aimed at identifying future volleyball greats by establishing centres of excellence to capture the talent in all the provinces.

Zimbabwe received the opportunity to host the Zone IV edition of the project’s Pre-Implementation clinic because of its centrality in the region.