As a part of its archery development plan in Africa for the year 2025, World Archery Africa (WAAf) organized a new “Beginner Archery Coaches’ Course” in coordination with the Federation of Archery Lesotho from 7 to 12 October 2025. The course was held in “The Lepereng Olympafrica Centre” in Maseru, Lesotho, under the supervision of coach trainer Mr. Djaafer Serir, ALG, and coordinated by Prof. Ahmed KOURA, EGY, WAAf Secretary General and International Judge.
20 candidate coaches and archers (11 males and 9 females) took part in the course, which was intended to help the Federation of Archery Lesotho create a national nucleus of coaches who can immediately start training young archers following World Archery’s Standard Teaching Process.
Many thanks go to Mrs. Mamphuthi Ntakha, the Secretary General of the Federation of Archery Lesotho, for her great efforts and coordination with WAAf before and during the project, also to Mr. Morake Raleaka, the CEO of Lesotho National Olympic Committee (LNOC), for the shown support.
The harmony and the cooperation between LNOC and the Federation of Archery Lesotho were really noticed and appreciated. As LNOC provided all logistic support and provided local transportation for the instructors and participants, in addition to the help of their professional staff, who showed unlimited support in organizing this course.
Archery in Lesotho has many advantages and assets, such as having an amazing Sports Centre with a large space and good facilities, which was established in 2007, and it can be easily arranged into an Archery Centre for daily training sessions in coordination with some other sports. They also have a huge amount of archery equipment, which was donated by World Archery in 2020 and was safely stored (in the Sports Centre), all the items have been checked and introduced to all the participants to know about their use. Part of the equipment has been provided to the Federation and shared with the participants as well.
One of the other advantages is that Lesotho is too close to South Africa, The country with a huge number of archery events and activities, so they can go by car (less than 5 hours) to participate in their local tournaments and train with some high-level archers in different clubs.
The end of the course saw different ways of evaluation, and certificates of attendance were distributed to all participants who were encouraged to start applying what they had learnt in training many competing archers with the hope of getting certified World Archery Level 1 Coaches as a next step. The president of Lesotho National Olympic Committee (LNOC) – Mr. Ntsibolane Letsatsi has attended the closing of the course and thanked all participants, then encouraged them to keep training, allowing them to use the facilities of the Sport Centre all over the year.
As a kind of additional support to archery in Lesotho, WAAf is currently working on the donation of (10) foam targets to help in archery training and development throughout Lesotho.
After the analysis of the current situation of archery in Lesotho, it was agreed with Doc. Lebohang Khomari – The President of the Federation of Archery Lesotho and a Member of LNOC on a road map to attract school students and young athletes from the areas around the Sports Centre to start training in archery under the supervision of the new group of coaches to be able to compete in SANAA Nationals in South Africa in April 2026 as a first International participation ever.
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