Africa-Press – Cape verde. The sports initiation school “Ponta do Sol Volei” and a group of civil society promote in Ribeira Grande de Santo Antão, a campaign to collect sports shoes to support disadvantaged athletes. The lack of shoes has led to the withdrawal of several young people from practicing sports, reveals Rui Silva, one of the project’s representatives.
The initiative takes place in Ponta do Sol, Santo Antão, and aims to support disadvantaged young people from the “Ponta do Sol Volei” sports initiation school who have difficulties in obtaining training shoes. There are 48 children aged between 10 and 16, in addition to another 40 young people in the senior category attending the aforementioned school.
Many of these youngsters, according to the initiative’s representative, Rui Silva, have given up on sports due to lack of equipment, namely training shoes.
“Most children cannot afford tennis shoes for sporting activities. We are talking about needy people who even abandon training due to lack of shoes”, Rui Silva tells our newspaper.
“Pants an athlete”
It is in this sense that they decided to create the “Calçá um Atleta” campaign to collect new or used sneakers and create conditions to increasingly involve children and young people in sport, starting with the sneakers.
The “Ponta do Sol Volei” school has been operating effectively since November 2021, after the constraints imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and, since then, as Rui Silva tells A Nação, the performance of young people has been impressive, with high performances in regional competitions.
But, much more than victories, Rui Silva prefers to highlight the inclusion that sport has promoted among young people of different ages because, as he says, sporting and social improvements are already felt at school, and athletes who were far from society found inclusion in “Ponta do Sol Volei”.
The promoter also highlights the incentive to improve the lifestyle and healthy practices, however he criticizes the lack of spaces for the practice of sport in Ponta do Sol, as well as the lack of support from the City Council and institutions linked to the initiatives sports.
Sneaker donations can be made to any member of the group in Ponta do Sol or to some representatives on other islands. Donation information is available on the “PS Volei” Facebook page.
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