The national ladies hockey team coach, Italian Valentina Quaranta, commended local woman coach Leah Chane, for introducing the game to Kigamboni youth. Quaranta said that although the youth play in a difficult condition as play grounds for sports remains as one of the biggest challenges in many areas in the country but still, Chane managed to engage several youth into the game.
She said that it was unfortunate the youth play the game at the market area in Kigamboni, which is not conducive for sports. She commended Chane for taking step despite all these challenges, saying it is always better to start with something and hopefully things will change sooner or later. “Youth unemployment and urban youth poverty are current problems in Dar es Salaam.
Young people run away from rural areas and move to large cities like Dar es Salaam looking for jobs, but most of them don’t have stable jobs. They are struggling to survive through informal businesses,” she said.
Quaranta added, with no job and no activities to do, the chance for these youth to get involved in risky behaviours remains high, so Chane was doing a good job for engaging them in playing hockey.
“Engaging these youth in a sport activity makes them at least busy for a couple of hours per day without a waste of so much time hanging on the streets.” She said: “Chane and her new-born group of young hockey players train on a ground that is officially used for the local market, so it’s always full of trash.
So these players are learning how to dribble the ball avoiding pieces of paper, plastic and other garbage…” Chane is a former Tanzanian player. In 2013, she was one of the players of the Tanzania Women Hockey team, which participated in the Africa Cup of Nations in Nairobi.
She is a soldier, started to play hockey several years ago, in the Women Army Hockey Team, coached by the tireless coach Mnonda Magani. Magani is also a coach of the Military men team, Vice-Secretary of Tanzania Hockey Association (THA) and Secretary of Dar Hockey Association. Chane began her coaching career after participating in the Hockey Basic Coaching Course held in January, this year, during the 1st Edition of the Hockey Volunteer Camp.
The camp was organised in joint collaboration between CO.P.E ngo, THA and Anymore Onlus. She decided to utilise that knowledge acquired from experienced coaches from Italy, Flavio Gallo and Francesco Richichi and from Netherlands, Nick Isbouts to build up her own team in the neighbourhood where she lives, Kigamboni.
She engaged some youngsters living in that area and started to teach them hockey, most of them are the secondary schools students, while others have no finished school at all and are just hanging around without doing any activity. Quaranta wished Chane good luck and thanked her and her players, saying the future of hockey in Tanzania depend on committed person like her.