The world of sports in Lesotho and Africa as a whole is fairly developed but little can be said for the intellectual property rights created by the athletes during their rise to glory. The fact is, most athletes still pursue sports as a mere form of self-expression and bodily health maintenance. Little is done to harness the creations they produce during game time.
It is sad to see how even today one can acquire a medal of excellence and receive no amount of money for having acquired a position within the top three winning positions. The paramount obstacle being: how can you pay a player while you still have to improve the facilities and technical needs of the game.
The question of interest, for the sake of advocacy and using sports in a way it develops and leads to the thrive of peace, is to ask ourselves, “Should the young generation choose between being a financially poor athlete, playing in a fancy stadium or in a reasonable ground with a well secured wealth management system that ensures perpetual implantation of wealth and resources in their life?”
The sad part is that most of us have grown up demonstrating an array of talents that simply got a worthless medal, for all it potentially carries is an 80’s story one gets to tell to their grandchild. There is nothing said of the wealth of these gold medals we have all won. What security does the development of sport can secure for its players? Should it not at least be directed to attach indigenous wealth around its servants and potential spectators?
It is worth noting that the youth can mix development principles with sports to accelerate real rights growth. Sports in Africa are at a position where the sweat of a player does not put food on the table but simply gains praises empty of any financial interest. This is particularly the case in grassroots talent.
If we sincerely say we want to see real growth and sustainable development, then let us put the wealth of the games in players. Under this analogy it’s much simpler to have indigenous sports investment as, when the players are given the money, poaching investors is easy because they feed into themselves automatically forming a circumference of development wide enough to tackle issues of our common wealth.
It is my contention that the supreme turbulence in our well of peace as the Common Wealth, is our inability to transform lives with a strategically developed policy that builds real equity and ownership of financial growth in the common wealth for the young. The efficiency of this tool is that it allows radical policy formulation and implementation that has real time consequences in our society.
The paramount observation is that the youth are inheriting systems of administration that are designed in a leader mentality where they endlessly climb with no promise of a future they hold a stake in. The development of sports should be moulding a sports world that is in sync with the principles of our times such as innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.
The tool probes sports economy and realizes the intense trade of values, that are strong enough to create a climate of peace building on inter-generation flow of resources from the old to the young.
Sports for development is an effective tool to tackle youth problems because it allows the youth to participate in infrastructure development and advocate for a policy position where a visit to the grounds also includes interaction with key policy issues. Most development agendas are unable to comprehend the vulnerability of the youth in development issues, due to their lack of socio-economic resources to participate in policy promulgation and implementation.
However, the youth sports for development is a youth platform that gives the youth a stake in an environment that would otherwise require subjugation and political silencing by the old. It is a fresh start where the aspirations of the youth and their population quantity within the common wealth amount to a substantial policy building block.
Sports for development is youth-centered and allows for all youth dreams to see the day of light under an umbrella of youth unity and administration that realizes the needs of our society from grassroots levels. The sports for development is not only efficient but is a tactful strategic thrust for it allows the youth to develop agendas from a much more informed stimulus of real issues as and when they occur. This enhances our reach as the youth to real societal needs.
The sports for development and peace is much better for the inculcation of principles and values of our evolving world. It allows us to teach the young principles of development from an application of orientated mentality that appreciates where they are going, thereby creating the conducive flux-state necessary for a progressive society.
The youth possess the rarest instrument in development, and that is their spiritual ambition and bodily vibrancy. When properly channeled, it is able to create tremendous impact in all they participate in. This is supported by a study of most African revolutions; almost all of them are inventions of the youth, determined to create a new reality for their goals and ambitions.
The tool allows a rational of putting all the wealth in the hands of the young. It is therefore a better sustainable vision that promotes an adopting society, the network that understands the calling of time to change our common wealth. This intelligence structure can go far beyond problems such as hunger, poverty and unemployment, but also allows for the opportunity to contest for competitive presence and engagement of the youth in a world ruled by the old.
Let all those who say they understand and perceive the way, walk the “sika la thole; Ntetekoane”. The solution is to let the younger you in your offices and sign on the dotted lines for our dreams, say yes to the younger ones as they take on the flame to develop Lesotho through African methodology of courage, power, love, honor, wit, intelligence, wisdom and a sound mind. A thought has been planted by grace.
To all the transgressors of silence, to all the activist of reality, truth and nobility Say Yes! We are shaping the Africa we want.