Growing Botswana's future equestrian leaders and champions
HSB Youth Programme
The HSB Youth Programme aims to reward, encourage and support children and young people in Botswana to participate, shine and lead in equine-related activities and competitive sport.
there are three different sub-programmes – an entry level programme for all equine associated activities called 'Budding Equestrians', a competitive programme to award achievement called 'Rising Starts', and the 'Youth Leader' programme to encourage and reward service in the equine community. The programme is open to all children and young people under 21 who are participating in equestrian activities and living in Botswana.
Awards
Activities, achievements, and engagement are recorded in logbooks, and these will count towards HSB Awards. These will include year-end national, district and club awards to recognise participation and performance by individuals and inter-district and inter-club awards to recognise the most active or high performing district or club of Botswana.
Programme Support Structure
Each district has District HSB Development Officials responsible for the HSB Youth Programme who will work with Supervisors to help record activities in the logbooks and grow the programme.
A Supervisor may be someone running or working at a stable yard, a coach, or another adult that has been appointed to supervise children and youths in the programme. The Supervisor is responsible to oversee safety of the participants and welfare of the horses and ponies.
Governance and Sponsorship
HSB has a Sub-Committee for Development that reports to the Executive Committee. The programme has secured start-up sponsorship including from First Capital Bank and other in-kind support to develop and design the programme. We are seeking further sponsorship to grow this programme and to be able to provide support to the young equestrians participating and to support activities for them.
HSB Budding Equestrians
Our vision is to inspire a lifelong passion for horses in children and young people through enjoyable experiences, camaraderie, horsemanship, and sporting activities. Our aim is to support Budding Equestrians through:
Education and learning to develop skills and knowledge
Working together to promote friendship and teamwork
Caring for horses to develop empathy for horses and each other
Riding and exercising to keep fit and healthy
Competing to learn fairness, equality and that winning isn’t everything
We will provide logbooks and caps branded with the Budding Equestrian logo to each participant to kick the programme off in early 2025. By recording activities HSB will gain an understanding of who is doing what around the country and this information can be used to analyse where the need is for support and what support is needed. In the first year we will award and recognise participation and gain further sponsorship to fill the gaps and help to grow more Budding Equestrians around Botswana.
Promoting youth participation!
Our vision is to nurture young champions through developing and supporting inclusive competitive activities in dressage, endurance, show jumping, showing and western mounted games equine disciplines across Botswana. Our aim is to support Rising Stars by:
Developing during club practice activities
Emerging at inter club training shows
Succeeding in graded shows
We will provide logbooks and caps branded with the Rising Stars logo to each participant to kick the programme off in early 2025. By recording competitive results for youngsters all around Botswana HSB will gain an understanding of who is competing at which level, and we can use this information to see who needs support. In the first year we will award and recognise performance in all disciplines at all levels of participation. With more sponsorship will be able to help train these youngsters and their horses and ponies to perform better and compete in HSB graded shows and internationally.
HSB Rising Stars
Promoting youth performance!
Our vision is to develop young leaders through education and training to gain nationally recognised equine qualifications to become our next generation of equine professionals. Our aim is to support our Young Leaders by:
Training our trainers, to develop coaches to grow our sport
Educating our youth, to be knowledgeable equestrian leaders
We have developed workbooks and a training programme for young coaches which will be rolled out across the country. Trainees will be able to assist with basic lessons for beginner and novice riders to help grow our Budding Equestrian. We are developing workbooks that will progressively support young leaders to grow their knowledge and proficiency towards nationally recognised qualifications, starting with foundation level qualification that can lead towards entry to international qualifications.
