Botswana’s first traditional games team to bring home medals from an international competition was recently awarded recognition certificates and their medals.
Officially handing the team awards, the Director of Botswana Traditional Games (BOTGA) Evah Kesiilwe said the team had performed well beyond expectations.
“The teams did well, in fact all teams that we sent to participate in an international Jukskei Junior competition at Hoerskool Zeerust, in South Africa outdid our expectations and brought home something,” he said.
Kesiilwe further revealed that of the three teams they sent to the games, two got silver medals while the other one got a bronze medal.
He said, “We are very proud of the team’s achievement because this is the first ever to happen in the history of Botswana.”
“In Jukskei we play with age, we play with age, under 11’s form a team both girls and boys, so do under 13, 16 and 18. The tournament that we attended was under 18,” he added.
Moreover, Kesiilwe highlighted that moving forward they will keep their training schedules as they have been invited to a tournament in December at Kroonstad. He said “We will keep the same training procedure, intensify it if need be so that we keep the team active and fit.”
“There are strategies in place that we have deduced for sustainability reasons; in the next 2 weeks we will be training sports teachers to reach out to students in different locations hence spreading the game,” he added.
To help develop the game of Jukskei and to make it known by the nation, Kesiilwe said they will use whatever platform is available to spread the game countrywide.
“We will use any media platform to allow people to be aware of the sport, as well as organise more activities on the ground to sensitize people. We will also engage Village Extension Team (VET) to help us spread the message,” he said.
“We will also use people driven approach so that people have ownership of the game,” he added.
BOTGA is an affiliate of Botswana Traditional Sports and Games Confederation (BTSGC), (BTSGC is affiliating with BNSC.
