By Ikemefuna Asika
The Olympic Solidarity in conjunction with Nigeria Olympic Committee Women Commission has organized a seminar for female coaches and administrators in Awka, Anambra State.
The seminar with the theme “Capacity Building in Sports” had female coaches and administrators from all the five eastern states (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo) in attendance.
In a lead paper titled ‘Strategies On How to overcome obstacles by coaches and administrators’ Prof. Florence Adeyanju identified culture, religion, fear, gender, exposure, education etc as the major obstacles faced by the female coaches and administrators.
She opined that for female coaches and administrators to succeed, they must develop the attitude to overcome those obstacles.
” They must build confidence in themselves , they must believe they can do it, self esteem is important and they must stand up for their right to be included in categories of coaching and administration. If they are able to do it, they will succeed.
She encouraged them to strife at all times to remain focused and achieve their desired goals.
While fielding questions from journalists, she explained that the objective of the seminar is to empower female coaches and administrators to mentor and guide female athletes so that they will see participating in sports as well other activities.
Prof. Adeyanju acknowledged that the male folks must also be involved, ” we need their cooperation, remember when I spoke about politics, when the males gather themselves, they will settle everything before any election. If we have their cooperation we will have somany individuals been plugged into various sporting associations”, she said.
