TABLE TENNIS PROJECTS DOING SOCIAL GOOD
ITTF launches ‘My Gender My Strength’, an initiative of the Women’s Development Program
Sports contribution to the sustainable development goals is recognized owing to its targeted approach to specific SDGs.
Equality
The ITTF Women’s Development Program has held coaching and high performance development courses and training for the past 20 years. Recently, the new ‘My Gender, My Strength’ initiative was launched to kickoff in Asia and Latin America. This is a further advancement of the current ITTF Women’s Development Program. The initiative will enable national associations apply for support for activities that focus on education, high performance, leadership and promotion in addition to courses aimed at developing skills of female coaches. Applications are currently open!
“ National associations are encouraged to take ownership of this initiative, define their needs and apply for support “ Dora Jeler ITTF High Performance and Development Operations Manager
In Pakistan, the Absar Welfare Foundation’s ‘Search of Pearls’ project works to motivate girls, women and their families to play table tennis. Today, five years since the project begun, there are 10 table tennis clubs with 500 regular players from the rural and urban areas of Pakhtunkhwa; their efforts to promote table tennis for all earned them a Butterfly equipment package during World Table Tennis Day 2018.
Health
The Tonga Table Tennis Federation received the World Health Organization’s Healthy Islands award for ‘Best practice and innovation in promoting health in the Pacific’ last month. The recognition was for projects and proposals that are working to make sports more disability-accessible, prevent and reduce non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and improve water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in communities. The win included a cash reward.
“ We were delighted to have won the WHO award and we are able to offer training to our local coaches to enable us extend the Smash Down Barriers program to the outer islands “ Netina Latu CEO Tonga Table Tennis Federation.
Peace
Coaches from our Nittaku 'Live Together' Dream Building project Abdulrahman Jado and Amir AL-Dairi are invited to the West Asian Table Tennis Championships referee. They met the competition manager and the referee of the tournament and had the opportunity to witness the organization and racket control system used in ITTF official tournaments. 32 boys aged 12 to18 years so left Za'atari refugee camp to Amman where they took part in table tennis competitions to improve their skills and promote cohesion. This competition is sponsored by the International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the ITTF Foundation.