The works carried out by the Fiji National Sports Commission have been commended by Assistant Minister for Youth and Sports Hon Alipate Nagata.
Addressing youths from the greater Lami area during a sports workshop at the Lami LDS Church hall Hon Nagata said the training workshops conducted for coaches and sports administrators has created a knowledgeable sporting community which will benefit the sporting community tremendously.
“Programmes such as the Commission’s Train the Trainers workshop are successful due to the close interaction of officials and the members of the respective communities they serve thus creating informed and enabled sporting coaches and administrators around the country,” said Hon Nagata.
“I am confident that the workshop has strengthened the knowledge you have already acquired in the two preceding Train the Trainer workshop and has imparted within you innovative goals in your respective fields and will be passed on to your colleagues,” he told participants.
“Moreover, I am assured that this series of programmes by the Fiji National Sports Commission is having a positive impact on your lives and in your respective communities as well and I commend the work of the Fiji National Sports Commission who have been instrumental in empowering our young sports men and women.”
The Fiji National Sports Commission’s Train the Trainers programme while into its third phase for the Lami zone is also earmarked for the other sixty (60) communities within the Lami-Nausori zones that are part of the programme.
Established in 2017 the programme has on record trained 604 youths as coaches and sporting administrators.
Workshop organiser and trainer Saula Koroi said the Lami workshop targeted eleven (11) communities and was designed to accredit participants with sports specific accreditation to allow them to coach or referee a sport that they have been trained in.
“For this particular training we targeted 11 communities in the Lami area right down to Namuka along the Queens Highway and so far after the commencement of the programme in 2017 we have had a lot of positive outcomes including the establishment of sports association promoting competitions around the greater Suva area,” explains Mr Koroi.
Participants at the Lami workshop also planted mangroves along the Nukuwatu foreshore as their contribution to government’s “30 million trees in 15 Years initiative”.