Africa-Press – Tanzania. PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan today graces the first edition of Tanzanite Women Sports Festival at Uhuru and Benjamin Mkapa arenas.
From today, the maiden Sports Festival is scheduled to climax on Saturday and will involve all popular sports played by Tanzanian women and girls.
The official inauguration of the festival will be done this Saturday at the same venues.
“President Samia has been a figurehead in promoting and motivating sports and women athletes. It is this commitment that made her accept our request to grace and officially launch this festival,” said Abbasi.
Sports and games to be staged during the festival are athletics, boxing, football, netball, basketball, volleyball, karate, Ladies commando show, tug of war and many others.
To brighten the festival, there will be performances from Bongo Flava artists, 98 per cent of them women or ladies, according to Abbasi.
The event, among other things, will try to unmask some challenges which drags back women from partaking in various sports disciplines and how best to tackle them.
Speaking yesterday in the city, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry for Culture, Arts and Sports Hassan Abbasi said a lot of sporting activities to be dominated by female athletes have been lined up to colour the day after President Samia’s official inauguration.
“Time has come for women to be given good platform for them to shine in sports and this is just the beginning bearing in mind that the festival will be conducted every year.
“As the ministry, we see this as a new chapter for uplifting women in sports sectors since we know that they are capable to do great things if they are given conducive environment to shine,” he said.
Adding, Abbasi pointed out that after holding a meeting with women sport stakeholders in the country, they discovered many loopholes which need to be amicably addressed before uplifting women athletes.
Few days ago, the National Sports Council (NSC) Acting Secretary General Neema Msitha said the festival is in line with the vision of president Samia Suluhu Hassan who is eager to see that women are not lagging behind in sports circles.
“On several occasions, the president has been preaching that women can do many things if given a good platform that is why we are coming up with this festival to create good stage for them to shine,” she said.
She added that on the first day of the event (September 16th) today, among other topics to be discussed will be the status of women in sports in Tanzania.
“Here, we will center on the fact that we (women) are many in terms of population but how do we participate in sports, what have we done in comparison with men.
“Some people do not even know that women have made great achievement in sports than men and the first medal in the country was won by a woman in All African Games.
“Again, our national women football teams have been winning several titles in competitive matches outside the country and there are many good examples of how women are performing in sports which are not acknowledged,” he said.
She continued: “We will also find a perfect time to talk about challenges which women face and how best we can solve them in order to push them forward in sports.”
Moreover, Msitha narrated that the other topic to be debated will be Ethics and Professionalism of Sports in Women saying the mail focus here will be to alert women that sports is a source of employment, it facilitate tourism and plays a big role in uplifting the economy.
