Uganda Olympic Committee in conjunction with Olympic Solidarity held its 5th Graduation Ceremony online on 20th December 2021. The ceremony was presided over by the Uganda Olympic Committee President Dr. Donald Rukare, accompanied by the Secretary General Ms. Ayikoru Beatrice.
The ceremony that started at 9:00am and ended at 12:00pm had participants who had successfully completed their studies and graduated with Certificates in Sports Administration and Advanced Diplomas in Sports Management, which are awarded by the International Olympic Committee. A total of 529 participants successfully completed both programs in 2020 and 2021. Of these 272 were men and 257 were women, contributing to 51.4% and 48.58%. The Sport Administrators courses produced 122 men (63.2%) and 71 women (63.78%), 78 men (47.56%) and 86 women (54.4%) in 2020 and 2021 respectively. The Advanced Sports Management Courses on the other hand successfully produced 49 men (53.8%) and 42 women (46.15%) for 2020 and 23 men (28.39%) and 58 women (71.6%) for 2021.
This brings the total for the Advanced Sports Management Courses to 72 men (42.35%) and 100 women (58.1%) for both 2020 and 2021.
In 2015, during the 1st Graduation Ceremony, Uganda Olympic Committee awarded 124 participants with similar qualifications and of these only 36% were women and 64% were men. This clearly indicates that we have recorded tremendous increase in enrolment and specifically increase in the number of women trained in sports administration and management thereby promoting one of the IOC’s agenda of increasing women involvement in governance and management of sport across the world.
Participants for these studies are drawn from National Sports Federations, Sports Clubs and associations as well as other sports institutions and organizations. For the first time also, we were able to graduate the first group of participants from the refugee settlements through the Olympic Refugee Foundation funded project of Game Connect.
The IOC member and chief guest Mr. William Blick thanked all the graduates for the effort they exhibited during the courses as well as the facilitators. He thanked the current UOC Executive for continuing the legacy of building capacity of its stakeholders through such programmes and committed that the IOC would continue supporting capacity building inititatives across its NOC cross the world.
The president of the Uganda Olympic Committee Dr. Rukare promised to avail scholarships to those participants who were interested in pursuing further studies at Bachelors, Masters and PhD levels if they successfully completed the Advanced Sports Management Course as long as they were available.
On the other hand, the Secretary General Ms. Ayikoru Beatrice emphasized the commitment of the NOC to continue providing the support needed to improve the management and administration of the NFs and other sports organizations in Uganda through such capacity building initiatives.
Four outstanding students were recognized for their excellence in the programmes having finished on top of their classes. These included; Umutoni Bridget and Asiimwe Brian Gita for 2020 and Ddungu Moses and Munduru Sandra for 2021.