Rwego Ngarambe, Director General in charge of Sports Development at the Ministry of Sports, has said that ‘Isonga Project’ won’t go anywhere anytime soon, describing it as a platform where the future Rwandan young talents in various sports disciplines lies. Ngarambe made the remarks on Friday, September 8, during the closing ceremony of the ‘Isonga Training Camp’ that concluded in Nyanza district. READ ALSO: What next for Isonga after schools get sports kits? The Isonga sports talent development programme is an initiative by the Ministry of Sports, in partnership with the French Development Agency (AFD) with an objective to unearth, develop and promote young talents, both males and females, from schools towards producing future stars in different sporting disciplines varying from Football, Volleyball and Basketball to Handball, Cycling and Athletics. Closing the camp, Ngarambe said that the initiative is not a once in a life time opportunity for Rwandan talents and rather assured beneficiaries that it will run for as long as it can to fulfill its talent development missions across the country. “Isonga Project is here to stay, more training camps will be organized and we are looking at having more than one camp in a year. We are also looking into on the path the children who finish in Isonga would take to continue following their dreams up to the top,” he said. The programme was launched in 2021 but was hit by Covid-19 problems and the activities were resumed in June, 2022, when the Ministry of Sports and its partners delivered the equipment to schools chosen to implement the programme. A total of 502 children from 17 schools across the country attended the first ever Isonga Training Camp and a host of 12 coaches and 37 trained teachers helped to train the youngsters during the one-week camp which started on September 1 at College du Christ Roi Nyanza. During the camp, children were given extensive trainings in their respective sports on top of teaching them civic education through which they were encouraged to embrace Rwandan values in their careers. READ ALSO: AFD to inject over Rwf1.5 billion in Isonga programme “We are happy with how this inaugural edition went, it was delayed by different circumstances including Covid-19 but we are glad that it came back and we are satisfied with what we saw,” said Ngarambe. “We have seen very talented children with a promising future and we believe that with these good coaches, they will become great professionals in the future.” On the issue of some children who, after doing the national exams would be admitted to the new schools which are not among the 17 schools benefiting from with Isonga Project, Ngarambe said that the Ministry is aware of situation will attend to is accordingly. “There are internal talks with the Ministry of Education on what we can do so that children continue to grow their talent through this project. But we also will implement the project in more schools because we want it to reach as many talents as possible,” said Ngarambe. During the closing ceremony of the Isonga Training Camp, students from different schools aged under 13 years formed two teams (Team A and Team B) and played a demonstration football game between them. Elie Ariel Impano, 13, a student at Lycée de Kigali, who is one of the beneficiaries of Isonga-AFD programme, said that the camp helped him grow his skills and competition experience. “We have had a good time here, it was short but we have learnt some important skills that helped us grow our skills and new tactics,” Impano told Times Sport. “What we can ask is to have more and longer training camps and some regular competitions between us,” he added. Isonga Project was initially launched by the government of Rwanda in 2009 as a talent pool approach through which the Ministry of Sports selected the most talented young male footballers to prepare them into future players for the national teams. The government revised the project in 2019, with a target to unearth, develop and promote young talents, both males and females, from schools towards producing future stars in different sporting disciplines namely Football, Volleyball, Basketball, Handball, Cycling and Athletics. To implement the programme, the Ministry of Sports secured financing from AFD worth Euros 1.5 million which will mainly be used in repairing and upgrading sports infrastructures in schools as well as training sports education teachers who will in return be directly involved in helping the ministry in the programme implementation from their respective schools. The government, through the programme, seeks to reinforce its role in identifying young talents, by ensuring inclusion and equality of both boys and girls, and help them participate in big sports events in the near future. “The future belongs here and you can't expect it when you skip the development phase,” Ngarambe said.
