Bri­an Lewis, pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), will chair a new task force ded­i­cat­ed to race, gen­der, di­ver­si­ty, and in­clu­sion to press mean­ing­ful re­form.

The task force was es­tab­lished by the Sport In­tegri­ty Glob­al Al­liance (SIGA), to which Lewis, is a mem­ber of its coun­cil, fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful SIGA-Soc­cerex We­bi­nar on the top­ic, “Foot­ball For All”.

Lewis, who is al­so chair of the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (CANOC), said: “There is a Yoru­ba proverb that says don’t be afraid to look at your faults. When we ac­knowl­edge our er­rors and face up to our short­com­ings, no one can use them against us. On the is­sue of racism and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and in­equal­i­ties in sport. It is our du­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and oblig­a­tion to cre­ate pos­i­tive change.

"Nel­son Man­dela said that sports have the pow­er to change the world while Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi said to be the change we want to see. We have to root out and elim­i­nate all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion in sport.

"More specif­i­cal­ly sys­temic racism and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and in­equal­i­ties is a re­al­i­ty for too many in­volved in a sport where the colour of your skin mat­ters more than your char­ac­ter. This is un­ac­cept­able and now is the time to do some­thing about it. We can­not con­tin­ue to ig­nore and de­ny the prob­lem."

The task force’s man­date is to de­vel­op and pro­pose a se­ries of rec­om­men­da­tions aimed at pro­mot­ing the high­est stan­dards on race, gen­der, di­ver­si­ty, and in­clu­sion in sport. These rec­om­men­da­tions shall be sub­mit­ted to the SIGA Coun­cil for ap­proval by the end of Au­gust with a pub­lic an­nounce­ment to be made dur­ing the SIGA Sport In­tegri­ty Week (Sep­tem­ber 7), dur­ing a vir­tu­al me­dia con­fer­ence.

On the cre­ation of the Task Force, Emanuel Mace­do de Medeiros, CEO of SIGA and chair­man & CEO of SIGA AMER­I­CA, said: “Ze­ro-Tol­er­ance is SIGA’s stance against racism and any form of dis­crim­i­na­tion and so­cial ex­clu­sion. They have no room in any so­ci­ety that con­sid­ers it­self de­cent and just. And the same ap­plies to Sport.

"The pub­lic demon­stra­tions that are hap­pen­ing every­where are se­ri­ous and con­sti­tute a pow­er­ful and time­ly re­minder that a lot more needs to be done to bring about the much-need­ed cul­tur­al changes. The SIGA Task Force that we are now an­nounc­ing is a de­ci­sive step to­wards that goal.

"On be­half of SIGA, I thank all lead­ers who have re­spond­ed to our call for ac­tion and vol­un­teered to serve on this task force, and will now be work­ing on a set of rec­om­men­da­tions on race, gen­der, di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­sion in sport, to made pub­lic with­in two months, dur­ing the Sport In­tegri­ty Week.”

Den­sign White, CEO of In­ter­na­tion­al Mixed Mar­tial Arts (IM­MAF) and Mem­ber of the SIGA Coun­cil, said: “When it comes to gen­der and racial equal­i­ty, in­ter­na­tion­al sport is lag­ging. The re­cent Black Lives Mat­ter protests have shone a spot­light on in­sti­tu­tion­al dis­crim­i­na­tion and pro­vid­ed a cat­a­lyst for or­gan­i­sa­tions across many sec­tors to look in­wards and start im­ple­ment­ing change. I am proud that SIGA, once again, is lead­ing the charge in sport and I am ho­n­oured to have been in­vit­ed on­to this Task Force.”

About in­clu­siv­i­ty, Stacey Copeland, first British woman to win the Com­mon­wealth ti­tle for Box­ing and SIGA cham­pi­on, said: “Sport is one of the most pow­er­ful things on the plan­et for bring­ing about pos­i­tive change, this is why it is so im­por­tant for sports to be in­clu­sive. As a SIGA cham­pi­on, I am ex­cit­ed to be part of the task force to use our plat­forms and pas­sion for sports to make a dif­fer­ence.”

Karin Ko­rb, Wheel­chair Ten­nis, two-time Par­a­lympian and 10-time mem­ber of USA World Team & SIGA cham­pi­on, said: “Work­ing with lead­ers whose foun­da­tion­al com­mon de­nom­i­na­tor is eq­ui­ty will move our work in an ex­po­nen­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant way. While dis­abled peo­ple are of­ten thought of as a mono­lith, I am look­ing for­ward to col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly fur­ther­ing the work of SIGA as a mem­ber of the 'Race, Gen­der, Di­ver­si­ty, and In­clu­sion' task force. I am ex­cit­ed to bring for­ward the con­tin­ued and in­ten­tion­al in­clu­sion of the di­verse and in­ter­sec­tion­al frame­work of dis­abil­i­ty in our sports eq­ui­ty nar­ra­tive.”

Oth­er mem­bers on the task force are Affy Sheikh, head of Star­lizard In­tegri­ty Ser­vices and SIGA Mem­ber, An­gela Me­lo, SIGA Coun­cil Mem­ber, Paul El­liot, Mem­ber of the FA In­clu­sion Ad­vi­so­ry Board, for­mer pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball play, Ju’Riese Colon, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, US Cen­tre for Safe­S­port; Katie Sim­monds, Gen­er­al Coun­sel & Se­nior Di­rec­tor, Glob­al Part­ner­ships, SIGA; and Pavel Kly­menko, head of pol­i­cy at FARE Net­work (Foot­ball Against Racism in Eu­rope).