THE Zambia Squash Association (ZSA) receives material and financial donations

Zambia Breweries Plc sustainable development manager, Japhet Banda said when he presented a K10,000 cheque in Lusaka yesterday that there was need to support organisations that wanted to build sustainable communities.

Banda said sport helped to keep young people from indulging in wrong vices thereby making them more productive and better people later in life.

“There is something about sports that helps to keep children on the right path such that instead of them indulging in wrong vices that will destroy them, they spend more time on sports thereby staying away from the wrong things,” he said.

Patrick Chifunda, a Zambian professional player based in the US donated 10 rackets and promised to donate 100 more; he however regretted the declined standards of the sport that was once ranked second in Africa.

Chifunda said the destruction of recreation facilities which once existed in the country had impacted negatively to sports development and denied children a chance to learn such sporting activities from.

He said he came all the way from the US to join in the donate-a-racket campaign because of the faith that he has in the sport, saying it had the potential to give one a better life as it had done with him.

Chifunda played squash in Zambia from 1987 to 1993 when he went to the US for his professional career.

And Black Dot Director Brian Silungwe, who donated rackets and squash balls commended ZSA for the initiative saying with such an invention, there was no doubt that the sport would be revived.

He expressed hope that the organisation would be able to reach its target of 500 rackets and 500 balls by December 31.

In a vote of thanks ZSA president, Norena Chiteba said her organisation’s aim was to ensure that squash was revived at the grassroots because it was from there that the country would get people to play at competitive national and international tournaments.

She said the campaign which started this year has seen a number of corporate organisations donating squash kit which includes rackets, squash balls and shoes which she said would be ready for distribution by December 31, 2013.

She said the aim was to collect 500 rackets and 500 squash balls and distribute them to all squash clubs around the country with the view of reviving the sport.

She said the older generation of squash players was doing fine, but there was nothing being done to groom the young a situation which had created a gap in the sport for a long time.