Tennis Rwanda Children’s Foundation has started a partnership with the International Tennis Club of Canada in order to promote the talents of children playing tennis in Rwanda.
The collaboration included increasing the number of infrastructures and providing them with equipment which they initially provided worth 50 million Rwandan francs.
In an interview with the media that took place Friday, July 21, 2023 held in Marriott Hotel, the deputy director of the International Tennis Club, Phil Cox, said that the thing that attracted them to come to work with RTCF is the security.
He said, “The reasons why we chose to work in Rwanda are many. It is a unique country especially for its history, it is a safe country.
“Through this game, there are those who need our strength, we look at their strength, courtesy, humanity, respect and who know how to deal with the problems they face in development. That’s the country we’re in now.”
Apart from the Tennis balls, rackets and machines they have brought worth 50 million FRW, while they will find construction companies ready to work with them they will immediately start building the Tennis pitch. He added
This issue of the Pitches is one of the things that the Founder of TRCF, Umulisa Joseline, highlighted as a main challenge for them.
“There are many challenges, the first challenge is the problem of infrastructure, the courts are very few. Also, the low number of tennis players is a problem that results from the lack of coaches. We are dealing with making more players which will help us to find coaches in the future. Considering the cooperation we have, it will be solved.”
Tennis Rwanda Children’s Foundation has opened other sites for children learning to play tennis located in Kirehe District in Mahama Refugees Camp, Bugesera and Kicukiro.
TRCF works with children between the ages of 7-10, currently has more than 500 children while at the end of 2022 when it started working with the International Tennis Club of Canada it had 67.