World Rowing (FISA) and their technical expert for Southern Africa, Rachel Davis have partnered with e.t.c to co-create and deliver a ‘Start-up Rowing in Malawi’ course to 25 learners from across Malawi, with mixed educational backgrounds and very limited English.
Funded by Olympic Solidarity and FISA and with the support of the Malawi Olympic Committee, the 5-day course was designed to give rowing developers the knowledge and skills to be able to ‘start-up’ or activate rowing in their own areas.
Delivered at the Livingstonia Beach Hotel on Lake Malawi at the country's only Rowing Centre, the course was structured into key themes:
Sports development and project planning
Learn to Row
Learn to Coach
Organizing and delivering a regatta
What next to ‘start-up rowing’ in your area.
Mr Sakala from the Malawi Olympic Committee welcomed the learners to the course.
The practical element of the course offered rowing developers the opportunity to unload, rig and move boats from the trailer brought in from Zimbabwe down to the edge of Lake Malawi.
Having moved the boats to the water, developers were encouraged to apply their coaching skills into practice and help their colleagues learn to row.
Rowing developers also took their project planning skills into practice and organized a land-based rowing event/ competition from beginning to prize giving.
The final day challenged rowing developers to identify specifically what they will do in their own areas with what they have learned. Each action item has been noted twice, once for each developer to take this back to their own space and again for World Rowing (FISA) and the Malawi Olympic Committee.
