TWENTY-ONE youths have joined the Livingstone Judo Club administered by Response Network bringing the total number to 379. During a by-weekly Response Network staff briefing, Hilary Mutemwa who is the organisation’s deputy Judo coordinator, said the youths have since commenced training every Mondays, Tuesday and Thursdays at Maramba Community Hall in Livingstone, Zambia’s tourist capital.

“In our continued effort to improve Judo, we have intensified our recruitment drive among the youths; we have managed to capture 17 boys and four girls who have joined our team. The total number of judokas is now at 379,” Mutemwa said. He added that the club which operates under the name Judo for Fred (which means ‘Judo for peace’ in Nordic) will soon embark on a belt-upgrading activity. Mutemwa said Judo for Fred has also intensified training for the National League Tournament scheduled to be held at the Olympic Youth Development Centre (OYDC) in Lusaka on March 10. And National Sports Council Southern (NSC) Provincial Sports Advisory Committee secretary general Amos Macha has praised Response Network for helping develop sports in rural parts of Kazungula, Zimba and Kalomo. “Response Network is doing very fine in rural sports development, but we need many more to come on board. The major challenges we face is sports development. We have a lot of talent but due to lack sponsorships a lot of sports disciplines such as volleyball and basketball have suffered. These sports disciplines are virtually non existence,” he said. Macha added that basketball, badminton and netball teams from the Copperbelt or Lusaka fail to travel to Livingstone for off-season trainings because there are not local teams to play with.