Tarasomo keen to mentor

Sports

Nurturing women leaders in sport has been a dream of Sulueti Tarasomo, pictured, which has enticed her to leave a well-paid job at an international education institute for a role as a coaching development manager with the High Performance Sports programme.
Coming from a province that breathes and lives softball, coupled with the fact that her husband is the national softball federation president, Tarasomo is as sport-orientated as her children are with their father’s role.
Taking that bold step to move away from writing lesson plans for students to developing programmes for sporting coaches, Sulu, as she prefers to be called, is on the verge of realising her dream.
“I have a dream — and my dream is to train 300 women to be coaches by 2018,” Tarasomo said.
“I hope this workshop will enable my dream to come true.”
Tarasomo has been selected to attend the Pacific Women’s Sports Leadership programme to be held in Port Moresby from Dec 5-9. She will join 22 other participants from Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Tonga.
With her employment at HPSPNG, Tarasomo believes the programme will give her the impetus to empower more women to excel not only as athletes but as leaders in their own sport as well.
“I would like to take whatever I gain from this workshop and promote sports to women from the grassroots to the national level,” she said. Tarasomo thanked HPSPNH director Aaron Alsop for his support, endorsement and payment of her registration fees.
“I would also like to thank HPSPNG marketing officer Raphaela Kaore and the selection panel picking me to represent PNG women at the workshop.
“I aim to put into practice what I learn from this workshop to enhance sporting leadership for women in PNG,” Sulu said.
The women’s programme is supported by International Cricket Council, Cricket Australia and Netball Australia and funded by the Australian government.