This morning 144 primary school basketballers from all over the country came together to play at the 2017 basketball nationals. The tournament started in September and after weeks of competition, the best male and female teams from each district made it to the nationals. This morning 7 news was there to see the kids in action. We also to speak to the Director of the Sports Council along with Sports Minister Patrick Faber about the importance of the annual event.
Ian Jones, Director of National Sports Council
"Well at the nationals it is the best of the best of the best. I think they have played a total of 4 or 5 games in their respective zones. Then they played the district champions so you really had to be the best to be here today."
"The champions from each of our nationals for our different sporting disciplines are the ones who get the priority to represent us at the Codicader games."
"We provide the jerseys for the kids and they get to take them home. We make it a point to say that the jerseys are for the kids. It is not for the school so the kids could say we were representatives at the nationals and this is a token we received."
Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"I hope the message that can be sent from this is that there are positive activities that our people our children can be engaged in so that they are distracted from getting into other activities of course that can be harmful to the nation so we are very happy to put off this event."
After a long day of play, the male and female Belize District teams came out as the winners of the tournament.
St. Joseph represented Belize City for the females and St. Martins De Porres for the Male team.
The runner-up for the female team is the Holy Family School from Stann Creek and for the male team the San Francisco RC School from Orange Walk.
They received trophies and medals along with some school sports equipment. The 1st place champions will represent Belize in the CODICADER competition next year.
Capital Cops Finally Get Their Big Up
And before we end this last newscast for the week, we have one story that we meant to bring you on Wednesday, but could not due to a technical glitch. It's about those Belmopan Police who moved so quickly to crack the case of the armed robbery at the First Stop Pawn Shop.
In less than 72 hours, Sergeant Julio Shal, Corporal Mateo Carrillo, Constable Jose Uh, from Belmopan, worked with Assistant Superintendent Alejandro Cowo from Belize City to arrest the culprits and recover the valuables.
On Wednesday they were rewarded awarded for their good work with a free lunch and award ceremony at the Bull Frog Inn.
Apart from lunch, they got a certificate from their police superiors, and a 150 dollar gift for each from Scotia Bank in Belmopan.
Pruning Inga
Our next story is about the pruning if Inga Trees. Now, if that means nothing to you, don't feel bad, you'd probably need a masters degree in agronomy to know what it means.
But, the Ya'axché Conservation Trust tells us that farmers in the Toledo District are using Inga trees, known locally as "bri-bri," to control weeds, improve soil health and reduce the use of herbicides on their farm lands.
Farmer Bartolo Teul explained the science and history of a process called Inga alley cropping:
This farming system was developed 20 years ago in Honduras.
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