Cologne University in cooperation with international partner universities has awarded a masters Scholarship to Shehzana Anwar, a Kenyan Olympian in Archery and Halima Bakari, a sports administrator and volleyball coach to study in Germany from 2021-2023.
Anwar, who will be undertaking the Executive Master of Arts in Olympic Studies, was the flag bearer for Kenya in the Rio 2016 Olympics and has been representing the country in archery since 2005.
She landed the award following a successful application among her peers and is currently a coach in Archery and a psychologist having studied B.A Psychology at the United States International University in Kenya.
“This is an incredible opportunity; I almost didn’t know what to do with it." The Olympics has been my dream since childhood; therefore, to be able to be given an opportunity to further my knowledge in Olympic studies is incredible, "stated Anwar.
The Olympian also stated that this opportunity would enable her to understand better how ‘small’ sports like Archery, Fencing, can be promoted and developed.
On the other hand, Halima who currently serves in the coaching commission of Kenya Volleyball Federation and the NOC-K Women in Sports Commission is one of the 30 candidates in her class selected competitively from 125 applicants internationally, having successfully presented a project that fulfilled the universities’ requirements.
She’ll be studying her masters program in the management of sports organisations. The objective is to help professionals working in sports develop knowledge required to manage their organisations better.
Halima stated that she will pursue a project in Transition in Sports that will assist sport federations with coming up with interventions, with coming up with interventions and better understanding of the challenges elite athletes face while transitioning into retirement and create a system that can be used by NOC-K and other federations to support athlete career development and transitioning.
“I hope this will inspire more research into the players journey, what affects them and inform sports organizations to improve athletes welfare, including equipping them with necessary skills that can be used for life after active sports,”stated Halima.
The Secretary General at the official presentation of the scholarships, Frances Mutuku, stated that Olympics Kenya continues to seek and support capacity development opportunities, which is one of their objectives.
“In the near future, we expect to have a strong network of active sports professionals that extends across the country to promote sport development in Kenya,” stated Francis.