In a bid to promote inclusiveness in sport, the Department of Sport Management in conjunction with the Department of Student Sports will soon launch sitting volleyball teams.
The launch will take place at Mowbray Campus next month and all CPUT staff members and students are welcome to join.
“Sitting volleyball is one of the most inclusive sport codes,” says Dr Brendon Knott, a senior lecturer in Sports Management.
Knott says the sport will be played in the refurbished state-of-the-art indoor facility at Mowbray.
The sport is relatively new in South Africa with teams only in the Western Cape and Limpopo provinces and the latter has recently finished their league and had provincial championships at the end of last month.
Sport Management lecturer Zizipho Ndlwana recently participated at the UCT sitting volleyball launch and was very fascinated with the sport and what it has to offer.
“The highlight for me, as an amputee, was getting the chance to participate in team sport for the very first time in six years. The game is not an easy one but definitely one to be reckoned with,” says Ndlwana.
“The inclusiveness was a very new and fresh component of a team sport. I played with people of different physical abilities and disabilities, different genders, ages, physical fitness, knowledge and background of the sport.”
He adds that it is challenging to all kinds of people, enforces a fair competing field and provides opportunities to learn and appreciate one another’s differences.
ParaVolley South Africa is the organisation that supports and develops the sport in the country.
Paravolley SA’s Anton Raimondo says they are engaging with other provinces to start the sport there as well.
Raimondo, a former Paralympics athlete in sitting volleyball and a media representative in the Rio Paralympics for World Paravolley, recently gave a guest presentation in the Sport Management Department.
For more information on joining the team students may contact Quinton Summers on 0214603345
or SUMMERSQ@CPUT.AC.ZA and Zizipho Ndlwana on ndlwanaz@cput.ac.za.
