Over 250 children from the seven Northwest states are participating in the fourth edition of the Northwest Volleyball For All Holiday Clinic for U-15 Boys and Girls.
The clinic, which began Thursday at the Indoor Gymnasium Hall of Ahmadu Bello Stadium, Kaduna, is solely sponsored by the President of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF), Engineer Musa Nimrod, according to the Head of Administration, Northwest Zone, Mr. Kayode Ogunleye.
“We are always doing this during the long vacation. It has been something that the children look forward to. It is solely sponsored by Northwest Zone representative on the board as well as the NVBF President, Engineer Musa Nimrod and the zone is in charge of organising it and inviting children from all the zones and the schools around,” he said.
Ogunleye, who described the attendance as encouraging, said, “we are still expecting more children to turn up. The games masters are here to pick up talents discovered. Last year, the NVBF President was here and donated balls which has contributed to development.
“What we lacked in the past was inability to replace aging players at the national team but now, we have available replacement from clinics like this. We are encouraging the talents, meeting them one on one and we are not limiting it to volleyball, we want other sports to emulate same,” he added.
“The challenges we face include funding and releasing the children by parents to attend such clinics. As you can see they are being fed lunch. It is not easy for one individual alone to sponsor such,” he admitted.
One of the instructors, Coach Samuel Ajayi, assured that at the end of the clinic, the kids would have learnt a lot.
“The clinic is not about winning but to fish out talents and make them useful to Nigeria.
“Most of them will be familiar with volleyball and would like to play volleyball. The clinic is all about catching them young, a Summer programme. Parents hindering children from sports are getting it wrong. They should allow children to come during holidays so we can help them fine tune their skills,” he said.
