February 2017

The new project of the School Sport Foundation, aiming for the training of school sport referees in Madagascar, kicked off last week.

In the framework of the Schools Days (Journées des Ecoles) in the Malagasy capital Antananarivo, 30 students selected by the national school sport federation (Fédération Omnisport Scolaire de Madagascar, FOSM) took part in the first sessions of a referee training in the sports of Basketball, Handball and Volleyball. The training will continue during the next month to reach a total of 10 training days, necessary to obtain a school sport referee license. 

The project was possible thanks to the fruitful cooperation of three different kind of organisations: primarily, the School Sport Foundation, that financed the project and sent a delegation to Madagascar to lead its early stages, to organise clinics aiming for the training of the FOSM staff and to meet with national authorities with the aim of discussing the development of school sport in Madagascar. Secondly, the FOSM, supported by four ministries (Youth and Sport, National Education, Public Health, Technical and Vocational Education), organised the whole logistics of the project, by providing local expertise and taking care of the 30 students during the training sessions. Lastly, the National Sport Federations that provided the trainers for the different sports.

On the Foundation side, the beginning of the project turned out to a success, both in terms of participation and of proficiency of the students who took part in it. In fact, some of the trainees were able to act as assistant referees or linesmen already during the competition finals of the Schools Days that took place on February 17.

Thanks to this early success, the Foundation will most probably support a second referee training in Madagascar before the end of the year; the details of this second training will need to be further discussed with FOSM and might see the inclusion of football among the sports considered.