Over 700 students in Lae turn up for programme

MORE than 700 students from schools in Lae turned up for a training session under the PNG Sports Foundation’s Go Rural to Go Global Strategy at the Sir Ignatius Kilage Stadium on Saturday.
Lae’s Go Rural to Go Global strategy is a school holiday training programme that would ‘leave no child behind’ in the area of sports talent and character development.
PNG Sports Foundation acting regional manager Momase Mathias Toliman said the programme started with the schools in Tent City and Zero block and other community schools in Lae.
They aim to reach 10,000 children in Lae this year.
“Go rural to Go Global is about going to the communities and targeting the children between six and 16 years of age mostly from rural areas to take part in soccer, basketball and scrum,” Toliman said.
“On Saturday the training involved nurseries from the schools who were categorised by age groups.
“The selected groups will then go through a registration process and their profiles will be compiled before they are selected.
“The three sporting codes are seen as an international pathway to building these children from a very young age to teenagers. The children who have registered are estimated to be 500.”
Toliman said that the programme was about sports talent development and that paved way for the children to build their skills to meet world standards.
“These children start training at the ages of six and when they reach 16 years old they have 10 years of experience and skills in playing this sports,” Toliman said.
“By developing their skills over a period of time they will tend to master it. When they grow up they become good at it. When we develop them at the very early age they become experts and they will become professionals and they will be earning a lot of money, remitting funds back to their families and their villages.”