A VERY BUSY YEAR AHEAD

A VERY BUSY YEAR AHEAD
…SNSRC sets the tone with two successful Shukuma programmes already

SHUKUMA SWAZILAND
By Dumisani Ntiwane
(SNSRC Media Officer)
Shukuma Swaziland! Greetings and welcome to yet another insightful Swaziland National Sport and Recreation Council (SNSRC) column.
It promises to be a very busy and hectic 2018 for the dynamic SNSRC team. Not that we are complaining, no. we are here to serve the nation and to develop our nation through sport.
We have already hosted two very successful Shukuma programmes so far in the year. The first one was staged at Sigwe in the Shiselweni Region and the second at the Mkhiweni Inkhundla in the Manzini Region just last Saturday.
It was another sight to behold, as hundreds came out to play. It is always heart-warming to see the joy Shukuma brings to these communities. The pure unbridled delight and enjoyment on the faces of the community members is always worth millions of Emalangeni. Nothing gives us greater pleasure than to see the young and old playing together and engaging in sport.
We are yet to visit more constituencies and our flagship programme will never be the same again. Just watch this space! Soon we will be relaunching the now popular programme.
The SNSRC Board has already declared this year the Year for the Youth. This should be good news for the country’s youth as we seek to empower them. The youth represents the future of the country. With our youth protected and safeguarded, the country’s future is obviously secured.
We will strive to cover every region and every constituency.
We aim to provide quality programmes for sports and community development for in and out of school children, youth as well as adult community members in Swaziland.
Our desire as Council is to see more and more people doing physical activities in their respective communities. Of course, it is also our wish to significantly contribute towards poverty alleviation at community level.
The SNSRC is eager to see an improved health and quality of life and also witness a decreased crime rate.
You will recall that sometime last year, the SNSRC Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Darius Dlomo did say that our organisation has a clear strategy for high performance, citing the Excellence Development Programme tailored to the Region V’s Podium Performance Programme.

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SNSRC strategic plan will see us through
After revealing in our recent past columns that the SNSRC Board has declared 2018 as a Youth Year, we have received so many questions and queries regarding the bold stance taken by the Council to that effect.
We have a 5-year Strategic Plan (to 2020), which covers a critical period in the country’s development in line with the call for business unusual to deliver Vision 2022.
The plan anticipates foreseeable and unforeseeable developments that will place significant demands on the Council’s ability and readiness to function as the supreme governing body for sports development in the country.
The strategy also seeks to deliver prioritised strategic objectives from the long list of directives outlined in the national sports policy of 2012. Our thinking on the period ahead as been shaped by our holistic quest for continuity that will build on our strengths and past successes, as well as strategic inputs by our stakeholders, dictates of the national development strategy, national sports policy as well as general public opinion and discourse.
This plan sets out an ambitious programme of action in the face of limited fiscal resources as contained or projected by the government budget estimates for the coming three years. Adequate resourcing shall be essential for the implementation of this strategy and hence Council shall engage in ‘unusual’ vigorous initiatives to supplement the government subvention to sport.
Council is alive to the perceptions and expectations of the populace regarding sports in the country. There is no denying the fact that Swazis are demanding greater intervention towards sports development and sport for human development.
To this end the strategy addresses the issue of reaching out to all communities in the country to deliver recreation sport at all the 55 Tinkhundla centres through our flagship programme, Shukuma Swaziland. On the other hand, collaboration with partners and stakeholders (especially SOCGA) shall be strengthened to deliver a comprehensive high performance programme intended to cultivate a culture of a winning nation.
We are positioning ourselves to work and deliver a Sports System through collaboration with our key strategic partners, and to this end we call upon our stakeholders, partners and the business community to support and cooperate with us as we embark on this ambitious project to ‘Build Our Nation Through Sport’.
The period ahead is tailored to deliver the National Sports Act, which is the ultimate instrument for governance and promotion of sports development in line with international good practice.

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Special Olympics: Health Family Forum
The Special Olympics Swaziland is inviting the nation to Its Health Forum and fundraising event, which is scheduled for this Saturday at the Millennium Park in Manzini, just next to the Riverstone Mall.
The event will start at 7am and an awareness walk from 7am to about 8 am will mark the start of the day’s activities.
This is definitely one event not to be missed.
On the day, the public will be treated to free eye screening, free diabetes screening, free information on how everyone can cope with intellectual disabilities. There will also be sporting activities and different form of entertainment to cater for everyone.
There will be food stalls where different kinds of edibles including cakes and snacks will be sold at cheaper rates to the public.
The aim of the fundraiser is to try and financially help the 2019 Special Olympics Summer Games team. These Games will be staged in Abu Dhabi.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing”. – Bill Shankly Liverpool FC’s greatest manager of all time. (1913-1981)

I will talk to you again next week, until then Shukuma Swaziland!