General
Source: allAfrica
Kisubi — The Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) is laying strategies to ensure women occupy at least 50 per cent of leadership roles in Ugandan sports federations in the next five years. Through the Women in Sport Commission, UOC has so far trained 232 women in modern sports management. 200 of those have attained certificates in sports management while 32 are to be honoured with diplomas in Advanced Sports Management.
"We have empowered women with leadership skills, developed their capacities and we already have commissions employing most of our graduates," Fiona Nakatete, a member of the UOC Women in Sport Commission, said at the start of a three-day retreat at Kisubi Beach on Friday.
The retreat at Kisubi, which has attracted several prominent sportswomen like former world youth athletics champion Catherine Webombesa, is intended to help the Women in Sport Commission evaluate its performance this year.
"We want to evaluate our progress and think of the way forward during this retreat. We plan to have more courses next year as we target getting more women in leadership roles at different federations," Nakatete asserted. "Being mothers, we are good managers because we know how to handle all kinds of people.
We believe we should be occupying the same number of positions like men," she added on the sidelines as other campers sweated it out in various sports disciplines like rugby, volleyball and athletics which helped them bond more.
Among the notable participants in the retreat is long-serving sports administrator Joy Olinga, who praised the value of the sports administrator courses.
"I have learned how to market my federation, do accountability and long term planning. These have been the biggest derailing factors to Ugandan sports bodies," said Olinga, an administrator for 15 years. Olinga is one of the pioneer managers of giant female basketball club KCCA Leopards.
Another notable figure, Hadijah 'Lady Mourinho' Namuyanja, put her skills to good use by leading the camp participants through a warm up session before their sports activities.
"I'm going to take what I have learned to women football and I am confident it will help develop the sport," said Namuyanja, who handles the She Makerere ladies team and under-17 national women's team. UOC president William Blick is expected to officiate at the closure of the camp, which is funded under the IOC Solidarity Programme, this afternoon.
By Denis Bbosa