by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor
She is present following discussions earlier this year with members of ITTF Development, Education and Training; especially, Glenn Tepper, the ITTF Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Leandro Olvech, the ITTF Director-Development.
Providing assistance and advice in the key areas of officialdom, administration and management are on the agenda; basically enabling sound foundations to be established in order that table tennis in Kenya may grow and flourish.
On Saturday 12th November, Sara Sutcliffe met Andrew Mudibo, the President of the Kenya Table Tennis Association and Elias Musangeya who manages strategic partnerships with International Federations for UK Sport.
Additionally, Sara Sutcliffe and Elias Musangeya visited the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) a community development organization which uses sports to encourage positive social change.
Notably the Kenya Table Tennis Association has entered into an agreement with MYSA under the auspices of the Sports for Tomorrow concept promoted by the Japanese government as part of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games proposal. Coaches from Japan are helping girls under 12 years of age to learn to play table tennis.
Pertinently, the focus is on the underprivileged areas of Nairobi; the goal is to give 2,000 girls in the next five years the opportunity to play table tennis.
The Daily Nation reported the visit of Sara Sutcliffe
KTTA partners with UK body
by Ayumba Ayodi
Kenya Table Tennis Association (KTTA) and Table Tennis England (TTE) on Saturday entered into partnership that will see Kenya benefit in governance and technical training from the United Kingdom.
TTE chief executive Sara Sutcliffe indicated that the partnership will see them second officials to the country to train local officials in clubs, KTTA branches and KTTA executive on management issues.
“We shall also have exchange programmes on technical issues where we shall either have qualified coaches coming in to train coaches in Kenya or conduct the sessions online through skype,” said Sutcliffe, who was speaking after meeting over 30 representatives from, clubs and KTTA branches at Goan Gymkhana, Nairobi.
Sutcliffe said the programme is part of UK Sport initiative that has invested in leadership programme where the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) use CEOs from their developed affiliates to develop the sport at upcoming federations across the world.
“ITTF is encouraging us to work with our partners so as to help them in strategic development since the sport is still going through evolution,” said Sutcliffe. “We realise that we are facing same challenges on strategy and solution are found within the respective countries.”
Sutcliffe said that they might not be giving equipment out at the moment but sharing experience on talent development and coaching expertise will speed up talent growth.
“Kenya has a small number of performance coaches hence a joint training will help put in place strategic plan and structures that will have both of us talking from same platform,” said Sutcliffe.
KTTA president Andrew Mudibo hailed the partnership saying it will help put in place structures for posterity in administration and coaching right from club to national level.
“This will improve our not only coaching and administration but also increase player base in the next two years.”
Mudibo said they currently have 3,000 active players and the partnership with TTE should double the numbers by the end of 2019. “Qualified coaching is essential to this campaign,” said Mudibo.
Meanwhile, Mudibo was recently elected the president of the newly formed Africa Eastern Region. Mudibo who was elected during the Africa Table Tennis Federation General Assembly held in Agadir, Morocco will be in charge of 14 countries in Eastern region.
They are Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.