Bri­an Lewis

Post Life Sport, what do we need to do to achieve sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of sport, recre­ation and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty? What must we do to make re­al the as­pi­ra­tions of 10 or more Olympic Gold medals by 2024?How do we pro­mote world class stan­dards in sport? Press re-boot and make struc­tur­al and sys­temic changes in­clud­ing mind­set and cul­ture?

Should sport be de­cen­tralised from Min­istry of Sport, and Sport Com­pa­ny (Sportt). Na­tion­al Sport Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NSOs) have a di­rect re­la­tions with To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, Re­gion­al and Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions, Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and oth­er part­ners with­in the in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work as de­fined in the na­tion­al sport pol­i­cy. Is the so­lu­tion a Sport Com­mis­sion?

The na­tion­al sport pol­i­cy es­tab­lished in 2002 pro­vid­ed a sys­tem­at­ic frame­work. Man­ag­ing, ad­min­is­tra­tion and lead­ing their re­spec­tive sports is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the var­i­ous NSOs. Sportt is re­spon­si­ble for fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of the man­dates of each NSO.

Es­tab­lished un­der the com­pa­nies act Chap­ter 81:01 in 2004, Sportt is a spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­ny cre­at­ed to im­ple­ment the na­tion­al sport pol­i­cy. It is the de­liv­ery arm of the Min­istry of Sport for sport ser­vices and is man­dat­ed by Cab­i­net to do a num­ber of things. First on the list is to es­tab­lish the Sport Com­mis­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

What ever be­came of that? Why no progress?

Is red tape and bu­reau­cra­cy caus­ing un­in­tend­ed prob­lems in the sport sys­tem?

It is a mat­ter of pub­lic record that no na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tion or gov­ern­ing body was in­volved in the 500 mil­lion Life Sport de­ba­cle. Life­s­port was not the fault of two in­di­vid­u­als. It was a sys­temic fail­ure. Tarou­ba did not in­volve any NSOs.

A sys­tem of con­stant di­a­logue and feed­back with NSOs and their stake­hold­ers en­hance syn­er­gies, in­te­gra­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion and re­spect­ful co­op­er­a­tion and build the ca­pac­i­ty and ca­pa­bil­i­ties of NSOs.De­ci­sions on what are pri­or­i­ty ar­eas re­quire gen­uine con­sen­sus.For­ward think­ing fu­ture back vi­sion and agen­da will cre­ate a step change and break­through for sport in T&T.

But it will not hap­pen in a "me first and to hell with the rest" cul­ture and mind­set.Sport mat­ters be it youth crim­i­nal­i­ty, gen­der eq­ui­ty, so­cial de­vel­op­ment, youth de­vel­op­ment, so­cial jus­tice and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, small busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

Un­due and un­fair crit­i­cism of na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions with­out a clear un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of what the is­sues are is not pro­duc­tive or con­struc­tive. Build­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty, im­prov­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, ef­f­i­cen­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions is a key pri­or­i­ty.

Em­pow­er­ing, en­abling and im­prov­ing na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions will fos­ter sus­tain­able sport de­vel­op­ment.Let's en­sure that our pro­grammes pro­mote sus­tain­able sport de­vel­op­ment. Phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, high qual­i­ty phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion, school sport all mat­ters. A bal­anced and healthy lifestyle at­tracts and de­vel­op the sport­ing stars of to­mor­row.Build a brighter fu­ture for the young peo­ple through sport.

Sport stake­hold­ers please ex­am­ine the var­i­ous man­i­festos and eval­u­ate them to see what are the plans, pol­i­cy pre­scrip­tions and ini­tia­tives for sport. Get a clear un­der­stand­ing of what the fu­ture may hold. Let the sport vote make a dif­fer­ence.Once you have played sport at a com­pet­i­tive lev­el, you learn that if you doubt your­self you have al­ready lost. Its not a cliche.

As we strive to cre­ate sus­tain­able ex­cel­lence in sport there will be many bad days. What we must nev­er lose is our self be­lief. Those who be­lieve that 10 Olympic Gold medals by 2024 and that the sport vote can not make a dif­fer­ence in a gen­er­al elec­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go are many.But thats okay. Sport mat­ters. One day T&T will ac­cept sport as more than leisure and a past­time.

Bri­an Lewis is pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­teeSup­port #10 Golds24 Ath­lete Wel­fare and Prepa­ra­tion Fund. Make your do­na­tions to any branch of Sco­tia­bank ac­count num­ber 171188