The Botswana Dance Sport Association (BODANSA) has today concluded its first training of first ever local coaches to take on its intended grassroots development programmes.
The training, which has been held over the weekends since July 8th, was conducted by Swedish born Federation of Dance Sport South Africa (FEDANSA) DanceSport Technical Official, Roy Edvardsson.
The coaching course attracted 12 participants, drawn from across the country, making them the first qualified local coaches in the country.
“Our sport in Botswana has been relying on foreign coaches to instruct dance sport in Botswana and we felt it is high time we had our own coaches. Most of the locals who are coaching are dancers who know the sport but are not qualified instructors, hence the need to help them be qualified instructors,” BODANSA Vice President Marketing, Abednico Tshambane, told Standard Sport in an interview.
Tshambane says in their endeavour to ensure that most of the country will benefit from these instructors, they chose people from across the country.
“We have participants from many parts of the country and I am delighted that almost all the districts have a representative, with some participants coming from as far as Kasane,” he added.
According to the BODANSA official, the training of coaches comes at a very good time as the association is intending to start its own grassroots development programme.
He says starting next year, BODANSA intends to start ‘Re Ba Bona Ha,’ a programme aimed at developing dance to kids at an early age. Tshambane says as such, the association will be looking to conduct more coaching courses in future to ensure that qualified instructors become available throughout the country.
He added that they had wanted to bring more people for the coaching course but some could not make it due to other commitments.
The coaching course is funded by the Botswana National Sport Council (BNSC), who are paying for all expenses as well as paying the instructor. Tshambane says BODANSA had been trying to organise the course since 2008 but were never successful due to lack of finances.
“The BNSC then came to our rescue and offered us the funds to do the course last year.
However, when we failed to organise it then, they extended the offer and that way we were able to make it happen this year,” Tshambane said.
On how they chose the course instructor, he said that, as affiliates of the International Dance Sport Association (IDANSA), they had requested their (IDANSA) help in finding a suitable instructor to facilitate the course. He says IDANSA then gave them a list of potential instructors in South Africa, from which they chose Edvardsson.
“He (Edvardsson) is a long time dance instructor and is very experienced and he is also educated in Sports Psychology. Some of his students have been involved in the sport at the highest level and some are in the professional setup,” Tshambane said.
