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LeftEight candidates from Africa took part in a training session in Lausanne in FebruaryRightMalato Ouya receives his MEMOS diploma from Gilbert Felli and Mathieu Winand As Secretary-General of Chad’s national athletics federation and a volunteer with the Chad NOC, Malato Ouya attended the recent training session in Lausanne. He discusses the benefits of the course and the challenges faced by his NOCWhat are the challenges faced by sports organisations in Chad that you are trying to overcome through these courses? Currently in Chad, sports executives are giving way to non-sports executives. For example, I work in finance administration but am a volunteer within a sports organisation. Our NOC president is an army general but a volunteer in sports. Most leaders are volunteers who have another occupation. All these people are not sports people, but are acting in a sporting context and making sports-related decisions. This presents a challenge. Do these courses help to overcome these challenges and transfer sports management skills to these leaders?Exactly. For those who have not followed sports management training, these advanced management courses are very important. They permit them to better manage their organisations from an administrative, organisational and financial perspective. Above all, for the management of large sporting events. The ASMC is welcomed within the NOC as it helps bring all these people up to speed.What is the impact of these courses? Take my own case. I completed the course for sports administrators a year ago and then went on to do the advanced course at the local level. I subsequently also completed MEMOS. This has allowed me to establish a project for the restructuring of the management of human resources in national sports organisations, which helped me become Secretary-General of my federation. Prior to the course I was simply a national athletesÕ representative; now I am at the heart of the administration, but always as a volunteer.How has the current situation in Chad impacted the work of sports organisations and sport generally in the country?The situation in Chad is quite tense as we are in an election year. The country is on maximum security alert because of the threat of terrorism. We are trying to use sport Ð particularly large sporting events Ð as a unifying factor. Sport is a vector of peace.INTERVIEW: MALATO OUYAby sports universities or otherorganisations. So we took advantage of the programmes offered by Olympic Solidarity to start training. ÒWe began with the training of four national course directors; Olympic Solidarity sent someone to Tirana to train them. Then we began our own courses for the training of sports administrators. Once we had completed this training, we decided to begin training other sports administrators to transfer knowledge. We have an unwritten rule that anyone who goes abroad to learn something then has a responsibility to come back and pass on that knowledge to others.ÓUnderpinning Olympic SolidarityÕs work is the belief that to manage, train and exchange are the keys to NOCs successfully assuming their growing responsibilities. There can be little doubt that courses such as ASMC and MEMOS are important building blocks within the Olympic Movement, without which the magical diversity and universality of the Olympic Games would be little more than a pipe dream. ■66 OLYMPIC REVIEW OLYMPIC SOLIDARITY