MPONDELA

By SHAMAOMA MUSONDA –
THE Zambia Amateur Athletics Association (ZAAA) has unveiled a provisional budget of $100,000 (about K600,000) to cater for three key forthcoming international competitions that include the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.
ZAAA president Elias Mpondela said his association had an ambitious but workable programme to see Zambia reap medals at the various impending international competitions and would work flat out to ensure the money was raised.
Mpondela said ZAAA had engaged the services of Robin Harland, who is highly experienced in fundraising and has been working in Scotland and all across Europe.
“We have various competitions coming up. Among them are the Africa Junior Championships, Nanjing Youth Olympics, Commonwealth Games and the World Youth Championships. All these need money.
We also need to prepare the athletes for these competitions and so we have that budget for them, we do believe that with Harland on our side, we shall be able to raise the money,” he said.
Harland is the father to Republican Vice President Guy Scott’s wife Charlotte, and has more than 40 years experience in fundraising and is presently looking at the ZAAA budget to add or subtract before coming up with a strategy.
Mpondela said Zambia has  a highly promising team of athletes who are almost about to start reaping medals at international competitions and that ZAAA wants to give them a final push across the line.
He said his administration had worked so hard to get the athletes this far and would not let them down at this stage when medals are about to start flowing into the country.
Mpondela made mention of some promising athletes like Gerald Phiri, Harry Mulenga, Titus Chifunda and the short distance junior runner Brian Kashinda.
“We had a very successful high profile meeting with Ms Scott and her dad Harland. This man has raised money for various organisations and wants to help us. He is an athletics enthusiast and he is happy with the potential and wants Zambia to do well.
“One other benefit from these interactions is that as Zambia, we shall gain as we are gaining more knowledge about how to raise money for our association for the benefit of our athletes and the Inter-Company Relay,” he said.
The ZAAA is also involved with the Kids Athletics Zambia programme where it has appointed First Lady Christine Kaseba as ambassador.