Admonishing the august gathering, President of NOC Dr. Patrick Coker spoke on fulfilling his promise to establish a resource centre for the development of sports and education in the community and the country at large.
According to Mr. Coker, his predecessor Henry Moore should also be commended for the initiative.
According to the OlympAfrica Technical Director Rev. Frank Turay, the former President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) conceived together with OlympAfrica in 1988 to investigate developing countries in order for them to engage and fully benefit from the positive perspective of Olympism through the creation of simple multi-sport and socio-educational centre.
“OlympAfrica foundation was officially recognized on 8th December 1993, and we have our objective why it was conceived,” Turay said. He added that in order to promote African countries there is need for an educational complex, functional enough and sufficiently attractive to encourage the rural people to return and stay in their countries after participating in international competitions.”
According to him, OlympAfrica was established to also focus on popularizing the impact of sports as a social phenomenon of global dimension capable to motivate its followers and help to restore hope to Africa’s youth as well as encourage the emergence of young talent.
Sierra Leone OlympAfrica according to Turay has been in Sierra Leone since 2011 and started a building in 2013 which had to be stopped due to the Ebola epidemic.
“OlympAfrica is doing a great job in our country,” Turay said; adding that the building consists of office space for the director, five toilets, clinic space, meeting hall, store, locker room and shower.
According to Turay the field which served as a sports facility to the community and the college has been taken from them. He noted that thousands of kids have in the process been deprived from pursuing their talents in sports.
He added that OlympAfrica has 52 centers across Africa, and that part of their mandate is to help children with scholarships in sporting disciplines.