Dundee gymnasts show great talent
Co-founders are pleading with the community at large as well as different stakeholders for sponsorship as they want to expand the club.
Children in the townships are not exposed to many sports as their school curriculum limits them. Celumusa Mthabeng, the Chairman of Dundee Gymnastics, and Thokozani Kunene, the Director of Ushaka Sports and Culture Community Development came together to teach young kids from Sibongile township about gymnastics. On March 26 they had an introduction course on coaching kids.
The Club started operating last year with a total of 40 members of different ages. Club members meet every day after school at different locations as they don’t have a permanent place to practice. Co-founders are pleading with the community at large as well as different stakeholders for sponsorship as they want to expand the club. Thokozani cited: “some of the kids in our club don’t have a kit and at this moment we are solely dependant on Gymnastic SA but we want to expand the program and we cant due to restricted sources”.
Nhloso explained that: “We want to do away with teenage pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse among the youth by making sure that during their spare time they have sports to occupy them and what better way than to do gymnastics” .The club also caters to children with disabilities, and for adults as well who are interested in gymnastics.
To encourage participants they give them certificates after winning and the club had four kids who have gone overseas to participate in competitions abroad in rope skipping.
Children as young as ten years old are welcome to join the club and coaches make sure that their school work is not interrupted during these practice sessions.”We need to register the club with the Federation and become members. We are also in dire need of funds as we don’t have enough sporting equipment. We also need transportation when we go to competitions. Initially we would like to expand this club and have sister clubs in other areas. The other major problem we are currently facing is we can’t afford to cater for the members during training which sometimes takes longer than anticipated,” explained Nhloso.
Thokozani and Nhloso are willing to work with different departments that work hand-in-hand with communities. They also thanked Cllr Kheswa for availing himself on the day of the training course and for making the event a success. “We had sponsors who pulled out at the last minute and because of Cllr Kheswa the event continued as planned,” explained Thokozani.
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