Sports
THE Lagos State Commissioner for Youths and Sports, Olusegun Dawodu on Friday said about 450 gamemasters would benefit from the re-training programme for the newly launched Lagos State School Sports Intervention Programme (LASSIP).
Dawodu made the announcement at the opening ceremony of the LASSIP scheme at the Molade Okoya-Thomas Hall, Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.
LASSIP is a wide reaching intervention programme designed by Lagos State Sports Commission (LSSC) in partnerships with the Ministry of Sports to reintegrate sports back to the Lagos State school curriculum.
The programme is part of a broad vision to leverage sports to promote physical fitness and wellness, offer alternative career paths to young people and create a sustainable pipeline of talent discovery and development.
Dawodu said for the LASSIP programme to achieve its desired objectives, the gamemasters would be retrained to explore new opportunities that presents themselves in sports.
“We all grew up with with sports as part of the curriculum in our schools. We always had time to do sports alongside our education.
“For us in Lagos, to bring back the old days we cannot start the programme without our gamesmasters as stakeholders to the success of LASSIP.
“By September this year, we would have retrained about 450 gamemasters that will be beneficiaries of the first scheme as we progress.
“The gamemasters are drawn from all the six educational districts in the state as a pilot programme,” he said.
Dawodu also said there were lots of opportunities in modern sports which would be of immense benefits to the future of the children through the catch-them-young LASSIP programme.
“Sports now have many opportunities and areas our children can benefit from; we have sports journalism, marketing, administration, medicine, law among others.
“Sports have grown in leaps and bounds and not restricted to activities on the courts or fields alone.
“These are the new areas we also want our students and children to benefit from and explore the opportunities that interest them to spur our state to greater heights,” he said.
The Chairman of LSSC, Sola Aiyepeku in an interview on the sidelines of the flag-off, said that the state was ready to make the LASSIP scheme successful with the allocation of existing and new sporting infrastructure scattered all over the state.
“We have been on the scheme in the last two years during COVID-19 pandemic. What we envisage is to re-model the school sports into a more viable programme.
“We want to have school sports done differently now to achieve a better results and now that the feat of Nigeria’s hurdle queen, Tobi Amusan is still fresh on our minds.
“We have about 445 public schools in Lagos State which is large enough. So to accommodate this programme, the state government has already began the construction of eight new stadia across the state.
“Five of the new stadia are ready for commissioning now while others will be completed next year. What we have done is to have these stadia strategically located to serve the six educational districts,” he said.
The ambassador for the LASSIP Scheme, and Nigeria’s Olympic Gold medalist at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia Enefik Udo-Obong lauded the scheme, adding that Lagos has been in the front seat of school sports development.
“Sports have been a passion in Lagos State and also school sports development.
“Back then, when other states are trying to have mercenaries to win the National Sports Festival (NSF), Lagos State insisted on using home grown state athletes.
“Lagos always takes sports to the grassroots, where talents were discovered and are still being discovered, while most of them have gone to represent the country at international competitions.
“Lagos State has been setting exemplary leadership in sports development and I am proud to be associated with this movement,” he said.
NAN reports that over 600 sports officials were present at the ceremony including District Officers for the six educational districts. (NAN)
KN
Tags: Australia Enefik Udo-Obong LASSIP Olusegun Dawodu Teslim Balogun Stadium
