Clay­ton Clarke

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Sports Ash­win Creed is call­ing on na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to ad­dress the is­sues of child pro­tec­tion and sex­u­al ha­rass­ment.Creed said his Min­istry has been re­ceiv­ing com­plaints and wants the NSO to im­ple­ment poli­cies to deal with the con­cerns. "You should pro­mote in­clu­sion in the con­sti­tu­tion, not on­ly for the NAAA but all lo­cal fed­er­a­tions, on a pol­i­cy of child pro­tec­tion and sex­u­al ha­rass­ment par­tic­u­lar­ly of our young fe­males."I am mak­ing this rec­om­men­da­tion at this point be­cause we have re­ceived myr­i­ad of com­plaints and as a Min­istry we have to do more to pro­tect our young women form this type of abuse."

Creed was de­liv­er­ing open­ing re­marks at the sym­po­sium host­ed by the women's com­mit­tee of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ic Ad­min­stra­tion (NAAA) at the Crown Plaza Ho­tel on Sat­ur­day.The Theme of the sym­po­sium was 'Be­lieve in Your­self.'Creed added that young men are al­so af­fect­ed. He ad­vised coach­es and of­fi­cials to pro­vide en­cour­age­ment to women and girls in sports.He added that skills and com­pe­ten­cy must be taught in or­der to achieve ex­cel­lence. "Teach the skill nec­es­sary for suc­cess al­so the com­pe­ten­cy to ex­e­cute the skill. We keep putting the skill be­fore the com­pe­ten­cy it is sup­posed to be the oth­er way around."Creed al­so said the World Cham­pi­onships women's 100m bronze medal­list Kel­ly Ann Bap­tiste will be ho­n­oured by the Min­istry of Sports at the Min­istry's in­au­gur­al Sports Awards on De­cem­ber 28.

For­mer Olympic medal­list Grace Jack­son of Ja­maica was the sym­po­sium's main speak­er. The 1988 Seoul women's 200m sil­ver medal­list shared on her rise from pover­ty to be­come an elite ath­lete and iden­ti­fied con­fi­dence and de­ter­mi­na­tion as in­gre­di­ents in her suc­cess as an ath­lete.Bel­mont Boys Sec­ondary School prin­ci­pal Lu­cia Reyes en­cour­aged par­ents to take time to at­tend their chil­dren's ac­tiv­i­ties and rec­om­mend­ed that chil­dren should have an in­put in the set­ting rules at home bcause if they are in­volved they will be more like­ly to obey.Over 140 par­tic­i­pants in­clud­ing ath­letes, par­ents and of­fi­cials at­tend the sym­po­sium and NAAA Women's Com­mit­tee chair­per­son Lu­cre­tia Burns said she was hap­py with the turn out.