By Yvonne Sakala – UP to £12,000 has been budgeted for the construction of a beach volleyball court at the Olympic Youth Development Centre (OYDC) in Lusaka. The construction has since commenced with six British students tasked to put up the structure already in the country for the project which is expected to take about five weeks. Zambia Volleyball Association (ZAVA) General Secretary Charles Haambote confirmed the arrival of the group of engineering students who would immediately start planning. He said that apart from the ZAVA, the Britons will talk to two other key partners in the construction and these are the OYDC and Sports In Action (SIA). Haambote said the Association was lucky to have a consortium of Universities in England come together and fund the project, adding that construction of the facility will help cement the relationship with other partners abroad. “Today marks day one in the ground-breaking history of the construction of the beach volleyball court, our colleagues from Bath University arrived in the country and will spend time in joint meetings with OYDC, SIA and Zava before work starts in earnest. We are happy as ZAVA to have the students and also the partnership between Universities in England, OYDC and SIA. We are thankful to the universities that we are the recipients of the facility and that the court will benefit a lot of volleyball lovers in the country,” he said. He said ZAVA’s decision to focus on beach volleyball was indicative of its desire to raise the profile of the game across the country. He said beach volleyball was a hugely attractive spectator sport and was quickly raising its profile world-over. He said the association wanted to raise the profile of all forms of volleyball be it hard court, beach or park volleyball.