By Gladys Fred Kole
United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) handed over sports materials to Tag Rugby Trust South Sudan Female Team.
The weekend donation aims at promoting gender and positive social norms for the girls to achieve their potential.
The Tag Rugby Trust team has both young boys and girls that UNFPA aims to nurture.
Tag Rugby Trust President of South Sudan, Labojjo Ceasor Ronald said the team received a full rugby kit consisting of headgear, boots, rugby balls, attire, skin tights, and socks.
Tag Rugby Trust Team with its main headquarters in England, also has a segment that takes the kids through hygiene, drugs, gang activities, and sanitary hygiene for girls.
The president said they aim to expand and take the country to an international arena in rugby by first growing the sport at the grass-roots level.
“We have bigger plans for setting up a rugby camp pitch; we have been offered land by a well-wisher, the former governor of defunct Jubek State, Jadala Agustino,” Labojjo stated.
“Rugby is here to stay; it’s a good thing. We need to embrace any form of sports because it is a unifying factor already. The basketball federation has shown us how far sports can take us as a country,” he added.
He urged that any form of sports, as long as it is about building peace and bringing communities together, should be embraced in the country.
For his part, the country representative of UNFPA, Dr. Ademola Olajide, assured his support to especially the girls in sports because of the bias that girls can’t do.
“Rugby is beyond a sport in South Sudan. It promotes discipline, hard work, unity, and the perception among girls that they too can play and expect to bring medals home in the future,” Ademola expressed.
“We will continue to leverage the platform of sports to challenge social and gender biases and promote gender equality and women’s empowerment,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Director General of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Edward Stimo, expressed that he knew rugby as a sport that didn’t have its players, as most of the players live in Kenya.
“I came today and saw young girls and boys playing, and this is a good start from the grassroots so that it can be taken regionally,” he stated. “With the talent that we have here very soon, we shall see ourselves in the international arena playing rugby.”.
“I need you to form an association, not an NGO so that you come and register with the ministry and let us know your activities. Because we don’t know your activities, we want you to come and show us your activities and plans so that we can get involved,” he urged.
Edward further urged UNFPA to continue with the support they always render to the youths in South Sudan, acknowledging their work.
Jurugo Robert, UNFPA’s youth adolescent programme manager, said in a country like South Sudan, sports are so important in peacebuilding; that’s one reason why they support the idea of the sport.
“We support women’s empowerment, especially our young girls; we want them to remain in schools. That’s why we support them so much, and sports will keep these young girls in school longer so that they are able to keep their potential at the end of the day,” Jurugo underscored.
UNFPA has taken up the initiative of empowering girls’ sports; it sponsored the boxing federation by setting up an equipment centre in Jebel, sponsoring starlets in Buluk, and now with the Tag Rugby Trust female team in South Sudan.