Africa-Press – Eswatini. MANZINI North MP Macford Sibandze has highlighted on the importance of investing in the country’s future generation.
This was during ballet dance awards for young children from around the country sponsored by Sibandze.
The award ceremony was held at the Fitness Zone Gym in Manzini on Saturday.
Young ballerinas from schools in Manzini and Mbabane participated in the awards and walked away with trophies and medals following a number of individual and group performances.
Sibandze revealed that in many cultural and sporting industries, the mistake made was to take note and promote such activities when the children were at a certain age yet it was important to support them at an early age when they could be tamed and encouraged to continue to pursue their dreams.
“When you invest on and support children at such a young age, you are basically banking into the future and 20 years later, some of them will be influential in society and they will in turn support and fund cultural and sporting initiatives because they would have grown in the same industry and enjoyed similar support,” he said.
Sibandze, who has a history of supporting and unearthing talent in the arts industry, such as popular groups Ama KipKip and Pom Pom and unearthing national comedy mainstay, said he annually witnessed the children rehearsals and participating in the events but noted that there were no awards, in the form of incentives to motivate the youngsters.
“This prompted me to engage a few of my associates who came through and we managed to make this event memorable for the children in an attempt to incentivise and encourage them,” he said.
Sibandze extended special thanks to Sizwe Ntshalintshali, Fraser Control Solutions PTY (LTD) and SKN Capital Investments for their support.
He added that he was not supporting the event as an MP, but as someone who loved arts and culture. He said it was not enough to just clap hands,but highlighted the importance of awarding their hard work with something they could remember and cherish in future. Ballet instructor Nosiska Sisky Malinga said the purpose of engaging the children was to instill good values and morals at a young age.
“Nowadays children are raised by television because parents are too busy making ends meet, this is not in support of the values that we want to instill in our children,” she said.
She added that such events were not meant just to teach children how to dance but also to build confidence and self belief at a young age.
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