Mary Waya Academy to award netballers

The Mary Waya Netball Academy’s final national camp will conclude today at the College of Medicine (CoM) Sports Complex in Blantyre where the best 16 participants will receive awards.

The camp involved about 40 girls unearthed through netball clinics held in Karonga, Salima, Kasungu, Lilongwe, Mangochi, Balaka, Chikhwawa, Neno and Blantyre.

The initiative, sponsored by Old Mutual to the tune of K5 million, started in December 2013.

“We will give prizes to the best shooter, centre, attacker, defender and goalkeeper. We will keep the nature of the prizes under wraps for now because we want to surprise them,” said the academy’s director, Waya.

According to Waya, they have invited coaches of reputable netball clubs in the country to sample the unearthed talent and probably rope some of it into their squads.

She said the rest will return to their homes to be used as ambassadors during the next netball clinics that the academy will be conducting every three months in the country’s three regions

The Nation

visited the camp training on Wednesday when the academy’s manager Annie Kapatuka-Sanga was drilling the young girls alongside Alliance Capital Sisters coach Jean Matola, Diamonds centre Bridget Kumwenda and Thunder Queens players Joana Kachilika and Emily Jere.