(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Senior officials are meeting in Georgetown this Monday in preparation for the Seventeenth Special Meeting of the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) which focuses on Sports and opens in Guyana on Tuesday.
This Special Meeting of the COHSOD on Sport, under the theme, Promoting health, education, development and inclusion through sport, is a mandate from the Twenty-Second Meeting of the COHSOD on Sport, Youth and Culture held in Guyana in February of this year.
The technical officers are discussing several critical issues from which they will make recommendations to Ministers of Sports on Tuesday. Chief among those issues is the need to strengthen physical education and sports in the Region’s schools. This will require mandatory inclusion of sports in the schools’ curriculum from early childhood through to the secondary level and greater collaboration among all stakeholders including parents and particularly between the Ministries of Education and Sports.
The senior officials will recommend that the COHSOD considers mandatory teaching of PE in schools; updating the sports curriculum; developing regional standards in sports and implementing policies that promote the protection of children in schools.
The technical officers are also of the opinion that sports is an effective tool to promote inclusion and in this regard are emphasizing that greater effort should be made in the Region to include the differently–abled in sports and physical education. They are of the firm belief that much more should be done to provide specialized training to relevant professionals who can cater to persons with disabilities. Their recommendations are in keeping with the Kingston Accord (2004) in which CARICOM Ministers had agreed to implement policies for the integration and inclusion of persons with disabilities in all aspects of society; and to create an enabling environment for persons with disabilities to maximize their full potential. Additionally, the 23rd Meeting of the COHSOD which took place in July of this year also examined the issue of child protection and child rights and emphasized children with disabilities.
The governance and management of sports in CARICOM is also another issue being tackled by the senior technical officers on sport. They are looking to get the COHSOD to mandate the establishment of a data base for Sport for Development programmes and to support the concept of the Caribbean Games as an important means of showcasing the sporting talent of Caribbean athletes, and to promote it as a critical component of sport tourism. In addition to this, the technical officers are preparing and update for the COHSOD on the Regional Sports Academy, which was opened in Suriname, earlier this year and tasked with a mission to promote health, wellness and sustainable development for all through sport and education.
Of utmost importance is the matter of developing sport as business in the Region. This will require the development of a regional strategic framework for sports tourism. The COHSOD will be asked to consider various modalities integral to developing this framework. The technical officers are also discussing proposals for international linkages for the development of sports tourism in the region.
