THE interim President of the Lesotho Badminton Association (LESBAD), Dr Moneoang Leshota says the association aims to ensure athletes inclusion in its leadership as a way of adopting the Badminton Confederation of Africa (BCA) and Badminton World Federation (BWF) structures.
sports
April 6, 2021
TEBOHO JAFETA
3 min read
Badminton body seeks athletes empowerment
Local badminton players in action
She told Metro that the LESBAD recently held a strategic planning workshop at which it resolved to engage athletes in the administration of both the sport and the association.
“We resolved to engage athletes’ representation in the executive committee to adopt BCA and BWF structures. We have appointed a Review Committee which is already hands on with formulating the association’s constitution. We have also recommended the athletes representation clause to be included in our constitution,” she said.
Dr Leshota showed that the workshop was also meant to build the association’s yearly plan.
“We also dealt with conflicts resolution mechanisms, membership structure to clarify whether clubs or only individuals can be members of the association. We focus on these things and will later prepare to hold elections as our current committee is still an interim one because we have now been approved as an association by the Lesotho National Olympic Committee (LNOC) and Lesotho Sport and Recreation Commission (LSRC),” she added.
The workshop, she said was attended by referees, coaches and players from Mokhotlong, Qacha’s Nek, Mafeteng, Leribe and Maseru.
Dr Leshota said some of the participants at the workshop included teachers who were trained on badminton by the association between 2018 and 2019.
She said they have set a three-week deadline for the assigned Review Committee during which to complete compiling the constitution after consulting the participants before sending the document to the LSRC.
“The plan is to have the constitution by the end of the year and by May 22, the constitution will be sent to the LSRC to present it to the Law office which will in turn return it to us upon approving it.
“We will thereafter approve the constitution and prepare for the general elections – all these should happen before the end of the year.”
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She said although badminton is relatively new in Lesotho, the committee however strives to develop players who will represent the country internationally.
She added: “We discovered that there are many players in the districts who know the sport and have been playing it for a long time. We only have to locate them and form the national team.”
The BWF has approved the new “Cock Time” which allows the sport to be played outside as opposed to in the past when the sport was only played indoors.
Dr Leshota said the association will also hold coaching clinics across the country, adding that the teachers who received training in past will assist in coaching the new players.
The LESBAD was officially re-launched in 2020 in Maseru after almost a decade in the doldrums.
The association was first founded in 1999 before it collapsed in 2013.
What remained for the next seven years were only remnants of the old body which continued operating in some parts of Lesotho.
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