for over 3 years and there is no indication that anything of such nature will resume any time soon.
A little over a year and a half ago (March 2016), a new Sports Minister was appointed in a cabinet reshuffle by the President of the country: His Excellency Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma, replacing the then Sports Minister; Mr. Paul Kamara with the former Deputy Minister of Lands Mr. Ahmed Khanou who was himself a former athlete and an avid Volleyball player in his days at Fourah Bay College.
The replacement in the reshuffle we can safely assume, took place because of a series of unfortunate incidences in Football and Athletics that involved an escalation of internal conflicts within the said parties which sometimes sunk to the level of physical violence that in one instance involved the Sports Minister (Mr. Paul Kamara) himself. This dire situation had progressively gotten out of hand and so the replacement was not only a welcome change for many in the country but also abroad in the Diaspora.
This change was widely seen by many experts and watchers of Sierra Leone sports as a sign by the government that it was serious about fixing what was now clearly seen as a very badly broken and fractured sports sector in the country.
The era of Minister Khanou who is closely involved with Volleyball, has bade very well for the discipline; because even though they had been making progress before he became minister, when he did, things got a bit accelerated.
Now fast forward two years later and the country has not only just hosted an 18 Country Continental Beach Volleyball showcase but has won its very first ever qualification berth to the Commonwealth Games.
This major development in Sierra Leone sporting circles is the crack in the door that the nation has been looking forward to. Sierra Leone and Rwanda another nation that went through a tragic period in its recent history with a devastating civil war were the only countries able to secure the only two qualification spots for African Commonwealth Nations in both the Male and Female Categories for Beach Volleyball.