About two years ago I published in your newspaper an article titled, “Let’s Take Sports Higher and Create a Positive Vision for Our Young Athletes”. In that article I highlighted why sports is important by stating the objectives of sports participation.
This time I want to share with your readers what I see as the purpose of sports and play from my perspective as a physical educator for close to 20 years and my training in the field of Sports Science.
I begin by asking these questions: What is the true purpose of sports and play? What constitutes the essential core of these activities? How does sports and play serve humanity and societies around the world?
I believe there are five dimensions to the purpose of sports and play. These are:
* building relationships
* education
* social change
* health
* joy
Being involved and around sports, practically all of my life, has empowered me with a better perspective of the power and contributions of sports and play in our society. Sports and play present limitless educational and learning opportunities through encouragement to develop skill and personal qualities. It has been proven that athletes who learn how to perform better also learn how to be better teammates. In addition, coaches and sports administrators should also constantly learn, grow, and engage in educational processes with athletes and peers. Through self-reflection sports administrators should strive to grow their teams and organizations. I believe that all stakeholders should see sports and play education as playing a paramount role in national development.
My formal training in the area of Sports Science and involvement in sports as a player, practitioner, and physical educator have allowed me to see the direct power sports in action has on social change and in the lives of many. As an active coach for over two decades, I have closely witnessed the positive impact that sports participation has brought to many. Since “Sport” is a synonym for “play”, why not recognize, respect, and invest in healthy leisure activity?
In Dominica we should aim to create a better and healthier society by putting sport and play on our priority list. This can be done by strengthening sporting programs at schools and local sporting clubs.
As most of us recognize, education is the key for the world’s long term progress. However, learning should not only take place in the classroom. Currently, children and adolescents in developing countries have too much leisure time, and some do not attend school. Many come from broken families, join gangs or participate in illegal activities because of lack of direction. Children and teens who seem abandoned by the formal education systems can be sheltered from the many perils that abound in their communities by the implementation of “Sports for Development” programs.
The impact of sports in society is not only measured by TV ratings or stadium attendance but also by the positive ways it impacts lives. In 2003, the UN defined sport, for the purpose of development, as “all forms of physical activity that contribute to physical fitness, mental well-being and social interaction, such as play, recreation, organized or competitive sport, and indigenous sports and games”.
Since “sport” is a synonym for “play”, why not recognize, respect and invest in healthy leisure activities? The implementation of sports programs can be easy and cheap, and, if developed well, can become a low cost, high social benefit venture. In order to achieve this, investment should not only be focused on building new infrastructure but also in helping in strengthening existing sporting structures. The amount of money and effort dispensed should be driven by the need to create effective programs that give priority to developmental objectives and are designed to be inclusive, enable sports to be a means for educating youth.
‘Sports for Development’ programs can become powerful tools for development and learning. They promote participation, inclusion, human values, acceptance of rules, discipline, health promotion, non-violence, tolerance, gender equality, and teamwork, among other things. All of the aforementioned problems are visible in the poor communities of developing countries. These issues can be dealt with by adopting programs that directly address them as part of their routine.
I encourage countries to look at sports through a different angle. Sports are an effective instrument that can help improve the quality and development of our children, families and countries in general. Each country will need to tailor its programs in order to focus on its particular problems and obtain the results it seeks. The results will be observed in the long term. They will not necessarily consist of an individual standing on podium receiving a medal, but an entire generation of good citizens, prepared with the necessary competencies to face their country’s present and future challenges.
In our country, Dominica, the government should use sports as a mechanism to: encourage young people to become involved in healthy social activities; promote health; foster the educational progress and personal development of athletes and sports players of all ages; achieve prestige nationally and internationally; highlight the concepts of excellence and fair play.
Government is important to sport because it can:
* finance sport and provide facilities and services
* train sport leaders, coaches and teachers
* help organize competitions, courses, fund raising
* help promote sport and healthy lifestyles through the media; and
* develop school sport programs.
Governments should often play a key role in the development of sport, requiring good cooperation between public authorities and sports organization. A healthy relationship between government and sport organizations include:
* frequent communication between officials
* mutual respect
* cooperation
* clarification of roles and responsibilities of each in the development of sport; and
* financial support from government
In closing, I advocate adoption of a ‘sports for all’ policy in Dominica. Statistics indicate prevalence and increasing incidence of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD) in Dominica in the last decade. This, I believe is the result of the change in life styles which include very little “sports and play” in our society. Increased national awareness of the benefits of ‘sport and play’ and increased easily accessed programs focusing on ‘sport and play’ will result in improved health and education for a great proportion of the population.
Great article. Please tell the Principal of SMA to ensue that sport is continued throughout the school and
NOT stopped at Form 3 in favour of music and art and IT. I appreciate that the ‘arts’ are important but
far more important is that boys are not sitting in their seats for 5 hours straight with no physical education
being provided for at least a minimum of one hour per week. Hence, the boys spend most of their time in
between lessons messing around and throwing plastic water bottles at each other which invariably land
on the street. SMA – bring back sport from Form 3 and leave music to the few that can actually play an
instrument because if there is no interest by then, there never will be and the music teacher only focuses
his attention on those that do play leaving the rest of the class completely clueless and this time wasted.
While I agree that many people do enjoy and benefit from sport, there are some of us that don’t.
Even after 75 years the dread of organized school team sports remains with me. As a dyslexic, I have difficulty in instantly telling my right foot from my left and 15% of West Indians are in the same boat. This doesn’t mean that we’re unfit or maladjusted, but it does suggest that sport should not be compulsory. Being the last person chosen for this side or the other does nothing for character building.
I’m sure you can be excused from team activities with a valid certificate or something as proof of your disability. You can still participate in physical conditioning though (jogging, running etc). Also it should be the job of the trainer/coach to ensure that nobody is discriminated against or made to feel inferior in a school sports program unless they’re training for high level competition in which case it would be a select group of exceptional athletes.
What does MSS. SC, stand for, forgive my ignorance.
What did you do with Luan?
Why is the DOC not taking an active part in developing sports in Dominica. You are a board member of DOC. What do you do with all the money you receive.
Why does your organisation contract foreign athletes that have no chance of winning to represent us at the Olympics, to give you an excuse to travel to those events.
Put your hand into your own bossom Cedric before you address others.
Thank you.
Wow Tjebe fort took the contents of that article really personally. I get the feel that some of the questions are directed at the wrong person. This article appears to me to be calling for action. I am sure Cedric would have been in the forefront pushing to have policies that would enable development of the kinds of programs he spoke about, if folks in the land of my birth were not operating on a ‘mister is not one of us’ basis. (I think that mentality is what causes us to be miopic and causes us not to see beyond the person)