Rwanda, First sport hub of Africa?
Who never heard about Indianapolis and its famous endurance car race Indy 500, but who really knows about its history? During 106 years this Mid-West American city, derogatorily called “Indiana no place” due to its lack of development, has been a motor sport capital city.
But since mid-1970s, things has been changing. The politician leaders drafted a development plan for the city. The special features of this draft is strategy adopted, every point enter the amateur and professional sport framework: developing venues and sport facilities, hosting sporting events, attracting the federations to relocate in the city.
Today we can say that after a progressive implementation, this plan is a success: many sport institutions including the powerful NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) settled down in Indianapolis, the College of Sport Medicine also… The city hosted major sporting events like the Superbowl XLVI and the Pan American Games. Indianapolis truly elaborated a sport ecosystem which has a positive impact on every level of the society.
The Center for Global Sport Advancement (CGSA) has been learning from the Indy special case. Enterprise based in Indianapolis, its purpose is to provide advices to developing countries about how to connect sport and development.
Since the last 20th of April, David Helmer (President of CGSA) and his expert team are visiting Rwanda with the perspective of a possible cooperation with the Rwanda National Olympic and Sport Committee (RNOSC). They already identified five high-potential Sports and took advantage of their stay in the Land of the Thousand Hills to check the different venues, to meet the economic, politic and sport actors and to get familiar with our culture and traditions.
After a first meeting at the MINISPOC where the different protagonists met for the first time, the CGSA represented by its Vice President, Joby Wright, presented the project to the Sport Minister Uwacu and her Sport Director (Mr. Bugingo). This meeting was followed by another one pursuing the same objectives at the MINEDUC. The rest of the stay has been very busy, on the 3rd of May, the delegation, guided by Jean De Dieu Mukundiyukuri (RNOSC executive director) went to Musanze, in order to visit the Polytechniques School and meet its Principal. They made the most of this trip to greet the people in charge of the secondary school of Musanze, champion of the basketball interschool championship in 2015. The day after, they met the WDA’s executives and on the 6th of May, we were received at the parliament to meet Honorable Agnes Mukazibera and Honorable Philibert, two members of parliament responsible for Sport’s Questions.
The last two weeks have been undoubtedly enriching, it permitted to feed the reflections and considerations of both sport and development Rwandan actors and also raised the awareness of the many occasions that sport can offer to Rwanda. Whatever happens in the future with CGSA, this visit was a great opportunity for us to focus on the advancement of sports in the country thanks to the accurate and relevant analyses of the CGSA experts. It must be very positively noted that, assuredly, Rwanda is a serious candidate to become the Indianapolis of the Region, the Capital city of Sport in Africa!