CSED set to take netball to schools in Nigeria

Inspired by the generosity of the management of Lord’s Taverners, the trustees of Community Sport and Educational Development (CSED) Initiatives has put in place measures that could salvage Nigeria Netball from its grand zero position.

CSED says Netball, a game played by over 20 million girls across the world will soon be in many secondary schools in Nigeria.

To realise its goal, CSED has just completed the building of an outdoor netball court at the IDPs Camp Uhogua in Edo State, the first in Nigeria since the post-Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) era in 1986.

One of CSED Trustees, Cornelius Ehimiaghe stated that he was excited to know that an NGO with no bank account could take on such a big projects and bring it to successful completion.

He revealed that CSED National Coordinator, Edema Fuludu led a team made up mostly of amateur volunteer builders to deliver the project within eight days.

According to him, CSED Initiative was not relenting in its efforts to make Netball accessible to thousands of Nigerian school girls, adding that they had concluded plans to go a step further by inviting an INF (International Netball Federation) Instructor, Mary Waya to Nigeria and facilitate a five-day training seminar for Physical Education (PE) Teachers in Benin City.

“This is going to be the first time in the history of netball in Nigeria that an INF training seminar is going to hold in the country,” he said. “CSED will be collaborating with Edo State Ministry of Education, Edo State Sports Commission and Edojobs Agency to train 30 to 35 Game Mistresses, who will be expected to take this game to the nook and crannies of Edo State.”

“The training seminar in Benin City will encourage the INF to extend its global development programme to Nigeria before the end of 2020. Nigeria is currently an associate member of INF, while some countries like Ethiopia and Cote d’Ivoire who started playing netball less than ten years ago are now full-fledged members.

Cornelius Ehimiaghe stated that CSED plans to make netball one of the legacies of Edo State hosting the National Sports Festival in March 2020 ‘by taking netball to 120 secondary and primary schools in the state.”

“All Nigeria needs is a ‘can do’ spirit, instead of the current ‘do nothing’ approach, which has led to Nigeria being twenty years behind the least netball playing country in the world. This is the reason why Sports Minister Sunday Dare must do what his former predecessors have failed to do by setting up a panel to investigate the reasons why Nigerian netball is currently in a coma.”