Children and youths of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp in Uhogua, Benin City, have won the maiden Mary Waya Award, which was named after the current co-coach of the Malawi national netball team, Coach Mary Waya, who defied COVID-19 and took the risk to come to Nigeria in 2020 to train and certify 24 Nigerians as qualified Netball Africa coaches.
 
Trustees of the CSED Initiative stated on Wednesday that the Mary Waya Award recognises the efforts by organisations and groups of persons, who use the power of sports to overcome tough life circumstances beyond their control.
  
CSED Initiative said: “Till this 2025, Mary Waya’s act of selflessness has led to CSED Initiative, which is netball pacesetters in Nigeria, training and equipping more than 370 Physical Education (P.E.) teachers and community youths for free. This has been done through the Project 2027 programme that aims at bringing netball to the attention of one million Nigerian school girls.

 “The work of Mary Waya has also led to CSED Initiative piloting the ‘Sporting Coders’ project, a programme that will enable some selected Nigerian secondary school girls to combine playing netball with learning how to code or improving their computing skills.”
 
It stated that though netball is specifically a sport that is designed for girls and women, the current goal of World Netball is to make the sport an inclusive game that should be enjoyed by everyone irrespective of their gender.
  
“CSED Initiative with the support of kits donated by Lord’s Taverners is currently training boys in selected schools in Nigeria, where the game of netball is played. The success of the netball team of Tare Pet School in Bayelsa State has triggered the interest of their male counterpart. Some school male netball teams look forward to gaining an upper hand over secondary schools like Oyemekun Grammar School Akure, C.S.C.S. Itam (Akwa Ibom State), Christlike School Benin City, and University Secondary School, Nsukka have netball coaches, and are currently in the process of considering raising a male netball team,” the statement said.
  
Meanwhile, Mary Waya has commended the management of IDPs Uhogua, Benin City, for using the game of netball to support the emotional recovery of some of the residents of the camp which is made up mostly of Nigerians of northern extraction who are victims of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East.
 
The residents of the Uhogua IDPs camp also have a football and cricket team that takes part in competitions with other secondary schools in Benin City. Over 200 residents of the camp are currently studying in different universities in Nigeria. Last year, Amo Ishaku, a former resident of the camp, who obtained a first-class Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Edo State University Iyamho, was awarded a PhD scholarship by the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA.
 
According to the outfit, while Ishaku continues to strive for excellence in the United States, the educational pursuits of other residents of the camp are continually threatened by a lack of funds to feed the residents properly, pay their school fees, and meet basic needs of the more than four thousand residents of the camp, forcing some Nigerians to question the role the Federal, state and local governments play in supporting vulnerable citizens, especially the IDPs.