Commonwealth Games athletes undergo media training
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday March 2, 2018 15:59
The Botswana Investment and Trade Centre (BITC) sponsored one-day workshop focused on upskilling athletes on how to handle interviews.
The workshop facilitator, Janine Lazarus said they accomplished a lot during a short time.
“A lot of the athletes are media shy and that is understandable because they have experienced the rough end of the wedge. The workshop was an effort to try mitigate that,” she said.
Lazarus said they wanted to show the athletes that the media could be an enemy and also an excellent ally. She said they dealt with the Dos and Don’ts when dealing with the media.
“There was an engagement on understanding the importance of the audience. I did a number of stand-up interviews with selected athletes. We also did a mock television interview in a mock studio. We also gave them a chance to respond to impromptu questions,” Lazarus said.
She said the athletes were lucky that they did not have hostile media unlike in South Africa, Ghana or other African countries.
She emphasised that ongoing training was necessary. Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) chief executive officer, Tuelo Serufho said BNOC and BITC entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) last year.
“We are in the business of sport and they are into profiling the country to potential investors overseas, but there is somewhere our mandates converge. That is why we came to an understanding to assist one another,” he said.
He said BITC did not take long to deliver on their part of the bargain. Serufho said the workshop was the beginning of more training to come such as on financial literacy, contract law amongst others.
Brand Botswana executive director, Bame Moremong said the athletes were honest to say that they have never been exposed to the media and they do not know what to do when on the world stage.
“This is an important initiative and not the last. It was a foundation that we were laying and we need to continue building on it,” she said.
She said nation branding takes place in many ways and athletes were one of them. Moremong said they cannot brand the country alone and there is need for the involvement of the athletes.
The Commonwealth Games run from April 4 to 15, 2018. Botswana has set a minimum target of eight medals.
BITC signed a MoU with the BNOC last year to work together in promoting Team Botswana at international games like the Commonwealth.