Early childhood development a strategic objective of city

29 May 2017

 

Children in the City of Joburg's Region B are still enjoying their bragging rights after they outwitted and outperformed their opponents in the citywide Kiddies Games.

The games were staged under the auspices of the City’s Sport and Recreation Department at Klipriviersberg Recreation Centre in Region F on Thursday, 25 May. Region B includes areas such as Westbury, Coronationville, Langlaagte, Parktown, Emmarentia, Westdene, Randburg and Rosebank.

The whizz kids of Region B outplayed their opponents from the other six regions as they accumulated 55 points in sporting codes such as ball throwing, bean bag balance, ring throwing, ball kicking, ball dribbling and ball hopping.

Children between the ages of five and six participated in the games, part of the City’s strategy to promote human development from a tender age.

Each year, a total of 490 children from all the City’s seven regions are trained to become sport-oriented and physically attuned. The programme also prepares children for all kinds of sports by laying the foundation for them to pursue any code when they come of age.  

“Early childhood development forms one of the key cornerstones of human development. So, physical development is critical in contributing to the holistic development of a child,” says Karen du Plessis, the City's Deputy Director of Sport and Recreation.

“It is thus imperative that programmes are introduced as they will stimulate children both mentally and physically. Our programme is aimed at instilling a culture of active and healthy lifestyle,” adds Du Plessis.

She says the objectives of the game are to:

• Stimulate cognitive and physical development of children

• Inculcate a culture of an active and healthy lifestyle from an early age;

• Expose children to sport at an early age in a friendly and enjoyable recreational atmosphere;

• Enhance social cohesion and group interaction through children’s sport, and

• Improve the health and well-being of children.

 The programme also focuses on social cohesion as children across the city and various backgrounds share the same space to explore the same sporting skills.

“These games expose children to sport in a fun way with the emphasis on enjoyment and participation rather than competing and winning. This is an established sub-programme of the Sporting Excellence Developing Programme,” Du Plessis says.

Brenda Weimers, Manager of the Kiddies’ Games says the concept was adapted from the United States. “We wanted to adopt a similar idea, seeing that our research showed that the programme was very beneficial to children. We then deployed our caregivers to the crèches to train teachers for the various sporting codes,” Weimers says.

Crèches representing different City regions are selected at local games. Each region consists of 70 team members. “Crèches chosen are those either based at the recreational facilities or in close proximity, or those that are regularly serviced by the recreation officer. So, the teams that participated at Kliprivierberg are the ones that performed well at regional levels,” Weimers adds.

All teams were presented with trophies.