Gov'ts Role in Advancing Sports: Domestic & Int'l Dev & Peace - Essay Sample

Introduction

The government has an active part to play in the development as well as supporting of sports life in their countries. Therefore, few governments take part in supporting sports both internationally and using it as a tool for advancing domestic as well as international development as well as peace goals. Sport has been used as a tool in any nation around the world to implement small scale projects in the community this is because sports do not require a lot of funds and it attracts many people in the community as well as it used as a means to pass information across the community, thus, helps in mobilizing people to implement their objectives and strategies that enhance the government to achieve local development reach their goals with home-grown communities.

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Long and Sanderson (2001), stated that form Chris Gratton's book of the importance of sport, they mentioned not only the project that benefits but also the community through participation. Sports refers to all systems or activities that its ambition is to improve mental health or physical suitability. This paper aims at discussing how insufficient consideration of local culture and norms, narrow targeting of the intended beneficiaries, and too narrow focus on athletic skill-building, teaching life skill and community building have reduced the effectiveness of sports development programs in Africa in providing community collaboration and economic well-being.

Insufficient Consideration of Local Culture Norms

Sports, as well as culture, have been perceived to produce communal impact such as health fitness, mental as well as wellbeing, life satisfaction, cognitive advancement, increase of community cohesion, social skills, and economic development. Sports involve engagement to a variety of activities which are formal activities that an individual participates in and not just attending where competition is held and the winner rewarded. Culture, on the other hand, involves engagement at cultural events or sites by attending. Cultural norms involves beliefs that a certain community believes in. For instance, Kenya belief in energetic advantage in long-distance running and most culture allow competition thus promoting economic well-being among the competitors and community in general. Amin (2002), mentioned that sports bring people from different communities together reflecting the diversity as well as ethnic identities which contributes to the reduction of prejudices embracing peace.

In Africa, most of the community values their culture and this makes it difficult for them to participate in sports especially when their customs are not considered. Thus this has made sports to be closely linked with the culture. Inglis (2005), argued that culture has an impact on human life. For instance, religious beliefs do not allow Muslim, women to take part in sport since they will expose their bodies this makes it difficult for them to take part in any kind of sport activity because in every sport there are rules to be followed and type of cloth to wear when participating, this reduces their empowerment (Huggins and Randell, 2007). Thus if sport development clubs, as well as association, would consider for instance the sports costumes to be used when playing they could have encouraged the sports participation of Muslim women. Other religious believe that sports especially football is a form of worship and it's an idle god thus they fail to participate in sports. Generally, due to this ignorance of considering the local cultural norms have failed in Africa's development through sports that having less effectiveness in community teamwork and financial well-being.

Narrow Targeting of Intended Beneficiaries

Teamwork, as well as reasonable play, are among the norms. Teamwork can be created when the individuals of all ages are included in the sports program, for instance, the engagement of the age, as well as young people and not only the youths, would create a stronger teamwork with supporters all over who motivate the team collaboration (Zeldin et al., 2008). According to Kidd (2013), mentioned that sports in Africa are Underfunded as well as underdeveloped having scandals, marginalization as well as corruption. For instance, the case of Caster Semenya who is an 800m South African champion was downgraded since her testosterone was questioned by the African sport organization (Crincoli, 10). Also, the Comoros case which claimed failure of Caf to implement regulations for the action which were supposed to be taken to Cameroon shows how Africa sports are full of scandals. Therefore, these scandals, as well as corruption, have resulted in only the involvement of youth who benefits from sports since the elders are left out due to the corrupt practices in the sector, which have resulted to Africa team's underperformance.

According to Chiweshe (2014), mentioned that corruption in the sports administration have resulted in this narrow targeting of youths and believes that the elders have no use in the sport development. Messner (2002), mentioned that most of the Africa areas, age people contribute too much to the individual development of the grandchildren despite being discriminated against. It is mentioned that age people's rights are internationally set out but frequently ignored. According to the African national government, it set out that the elder rights should be protected since getting old is conveyed by poverty as well as weakening of the community organizations due conflicts since they are not given opportunities to participate in development actions. Since the main reason for sport is to have health benefits, community support, social as well as being part of the team, and contribution of successful aging, Africa has failed to consider the elderly rights which includes all human rights. Due to the violation of these rights, it contributed to the European Union's participation in speaking for the aged. The African sports organization should embrace various cultural customs and include elders to mentor the youths from their experience as to contribute to community collaboration as well as economic well-being.

Too Narrow Focus on Athletic Skill-Building vs. Teaching Life Skills and Community-Building

Engagement in sports seems to be interesting in most children as they grow. () reports mentioned that playing it enables individuals to improve on various skills which are of importance throughout human life. As mentioned by Vallerand et al., (2008), the quality, as well as the quantity of training, predicts the attainment of the objective of the individual or as a team. The research on skills advancement has supported that training or practices, as well as skills attainment, are linked. Simon and Chase (1973), studies on the 10-year rule where they demonstrated using a chess player expert level compared to a less skilled player, they argued that the difference between the master and the new player is the ability to unify such that the quality plus quantity of training contribute to performance variation. Therefore, Africa athletic performance have been effect by athletic skills building this is because the narrowing of such skills have reduced the performance.

Teaching life skills involves skills in promoting personal advancement. Therefore, teaching form schools, parent teaching as well as support, coaching practices by an expert person all participates in the development of a competitive individual or a team. Magill (1998), stated that athletic skills are similar to motor skills since they require the body to act and move voluntarily. Hardcastle et al., (2015), shows a three-stage skills development which involves cognitive stage where the learner has many unanswered questions, the associative stage where athlete have basic and autonomous stage where the athlete engages into much practice. With these stages being applied and the use of the 8 athlete abilities that is; strength, speed, power, endurance, coordination, balance, flexibility as well as agility it will contribute to a lot of skills to an athlete. For instance, the application of the eight abilities in Kenya and Ethiopia have made the two countries to be known of athletic. Therefore, the target athlete obtains better resources as well as instructions which enable him or her to have athletic skills that contribute to community building being one team and embracing other's culture. Thus the widening of athletic skills and teaching skills and community building in Africa sports can bring about teamwork and raise economic well-being.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the sports development program should consider the local cultural norms, engage a broader range of the community individuals such as the aged and empathize for the training program, the need for life skills and community building to contribute to the success of the sport sector, contributing to community teamwork and economic wellbeing.

References

Amin, A. (2002). Ethnicity and the multicultural city: living with diversity. Environment and Planning A, 34(6), 959-980.

Chiweshe, K. M. (2014). The problem with African football: corruption and the (under) development of the game on the continent. African sports law and business bulletin, 2, 27-33.

Crincoli, S. M. (2010). You can only race if you can't win-The The curious cases of Oscar Pistorius & Caster Semenya. Tex. Rev. Ent. & Sports L., 12, 133.

Huggins, A., & Randell, S. (2007, April). The contribution of sports to gender equality and women's empowerment. A paper presented at the International Conference on Gender Equity on Sports for Social Change, Kigali. Retrieved March (Vol. 3, p. 2009).

Inglis, D. (2005). Culture and everyday life. Psychology Press.

Kidd, B. (2013). A new social movement: Sport for development and peace. In Sport and foreign policy in a globalizing world (pp. 36-46). Routledge.

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Messner, M. A. (2002). Taking the field: Women, men, and sports (Vol. 4). U of Minnesota Press.

Zeldin, S., Petrokubi, J., & MacNeil, C. (2008). Youth-adult partnerships in decision making: Disseminating and implementing an innovative idea into established organizations and communities. American Journal of Community Psychology, 41(3-4), 262-277.

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Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973). Skill in chess. American Scientist, 61(4), 394-403.

Magill, R. A. (1998). Knowledge is more than we can talk about: Implicit learning in motor skill acquisition. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 69(2), 104-110.

Hardcastle, S. J., Tye, M., Glassey, R., & Hagger, M. S. (2015). Exploring the perceived effectiveness of a life skills development program for high-performance athletes. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 139-149.