By Bockarie Allieu
FREETOWN, July 14 (SALONE TIMES) – Sierra Leone Sports Writers Association in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Cricket Association organized a three day workshop for Sports Journalists.
The workshop took place at the Police Wives Multi-purpose Hall at Kingtom in Freetown. The above workshop was organized to teach Sports Journalists how to report and do commentary on Cricket matches.
In his statement, the president of the Sports Writers Association in Sierra Leone Sahr Morris Jr. said majority of the Sports Journalists in Sierra Leone have been concentrated on reporting football games with few reporting on other sports. This, he said is not because they don’t want to report on the other sports but the fact is they don’t know the rules of the other sports.
Because of this, he said they engage the Chairman of the Sierra Leone Cricket Francis Trevor Samura that they want to work with his association to train their colleagues how to report on cricket.
He went on that fortunately it was already been in the plans of the new board to train Sports Journalists how to report on Cricket activities.
With this, Morris said they went on straight to invite Sports Journalists from the city and the provinces to take part in the workshop.
Samura in his address told the Journalists that Cricket has undergone several activities both local and international but say it has been under reported.
He thanked the participants who participated in the workshop more for those from the provinces for living their busy schedules to take part in the course which he said is not for money but for the love of the game.
The Chairman assured them that they have high respect for the media even before the workshop and they will continue in that direction.
He also assured them that they will continue their support to the media. He told them a short history of Cricket in Sierra Leone and the various national teams they have for both male and female.
He said the secret behind their success is because of good plans and good governance. Samura talked about their plans to expand the games and development programs to all the regions enable them to cover matches in their own regions and report on them.
Already, he said they have grounds in Freetown, Bo, Kenema and they will be doing it parallel in Makeni and Magburaka as soon as they get the funds available.
The association did not only provide tutors for the workshop but went on to provide lodging, feeding and transportation for the provincial journalists.
Transport was also provided for journalists in the city. The participants thanked the board and their executive for such an educative workshop.
Majority accepted that the workshop was a blessing in disguise to now enable them to report on Cricket. Some said they have just been hearing about the name Cricket and see it on TV screens but has never been fortunate to watch a live Cricket match. They assured the Cricket board that they will pay back to them by covering all their matches and other activities and give report on them.
