The 2022 FIFA World Cup tournament is a true testament that constant work and deliberate effort towards empowering females can yield positive results.
Yamashita Yoshimi, Salima Mukansanga and Stephanie Frappart are for the first time in the history of World cup referees the only females among the 36 referees selected for the tournament.
Salima Mukansanga, one of the female referees hails from one of the East African countries Rwanda. Surprisingly the graduate of nursing and midwifery with a passion for sport opted to referee football games and rose through the ranks to officiating tournaments like the recently concluded AFCON games.
The resilience and craftmanship of Mukansanga is a lesson for most women with passion in games like football. As much as passion plays a key role in our career endeavors, taking time to learn and perfect your skill set is equally important.Learning may not necessarily have to be done in school, rather in the field.
According to a study conducted by Prof Kou Murayama from the American Psychological Association (Murayama & Elliot, 2011) on human behavior and what motivates humans to learn, two groups were presented with a problem to solve, one group’s motivation was to mastery (develop their cognitive ability while solving the task) and the other performance, (show you can perform and compete better than the other group).
The group with the performance goal indeed had a higher memory performance in an immediate test, however a test conducted a week later showed that those with the mastery goal had a higher memory performance than the other group.
This study is proof that mastery will always get a learner long-term achievement. Practice does make perfect. A case in point, MultiChoice Uganda unveiled a new development and innovation for their viewers of the 2022 FIFA World Cup — Local Commentary in Luganda.
This however meant that MultiChoice had to source and partner with renowned local commentators to work with during the season. In a male dominated space, Peace Diane the only female commentator on the project was an easy pick given her experience and skill set.
The beauty with investing time to master your craft is that formidable and high repute corporations and organizations gravitate easily towards making the decision to work with you based on your talent when looking for resources to partner or collaborate with on key projects.
Bagala started as a football player in her school days and later grew to make analysis and commentary of games on CBS and BBS TV. The sports journalist made her debut on Kalisoliso, a prominent morning show with one of the highest listenership countrywide following a series of trainings and having a go at in country league games.
Harnessing your skill begins with acceptance to learn and unlearn as you aim to get perfect at what you do. Just like Rome was not built in one day, it takes patience and humility to get to the top when one is deliberate about improving their skill.
The writer is Clive Kyazze a sports journalist.
