Fourth sports strategic plan enters review process |04 November 2011

Community Development, Youth and Sports minister Vincent Meriton officially launched the discussions at the Sports Training Centre in the presence of youth and sports principal secretary Denis Rose, NSC chief executive Alain Volcère, major games director general Eric Arnephie, and sports planning and development director general Jean Larue.

The minister stressed on time-keeping, saying “it is only through self-discipline that all involved in the development of sports can help Seychelles’ sports reach new heights.”

Mr Meriton added that the new sporting cycle development will empower the country’s main sports body – the NSC – to attract more funding from the private sector, venture into businesses which will finance local sports, work with volunteers, improve the ability of local coaches and athletes through training programmes, implement a good level of sports medicine, develop sports tourism, and work with sports federations and associations so that they can deliver the goods expected of them while at the same time respecting their independence.

After yesterday’s meetings with NSC representatives, there will be major consultations with the local sports community and different stakeholders like the Ministry of Education, sports federations and associations, representatives of sponsors, the districts, the Seychelles Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association and the media before the policy is endorsed.

The vision of the 2012-2016 sports strategic plan to be launched in January next year is to have ‘A Healthier and More Active Seychelles’.

Some of the main areas of this sports strategic plan are the classification of sports, funding agreement, school sports, federations/associations empowerment, international competitions, and sports marketing, tourism and economics.
The country’s last real sports strategic plan was launched in May 2004 and it expired in 2008, thus the need for a new one.

Mr Larue told Sports Nation that even though there was no sports strategic plan for the four-year period 2008-2011, the ministry responsible for sports had a policy for the 8th Indian Ocean Island Games which the country hosted from August 5-14 this year and a record 57 gold medals was won by Seychellois athletes.

Mr Larue added that other small and specific policies like ‘doping and sports’ and ‘foreign players involved in local competitions’ were also reviewed between 2008 and now.

“It’s true we did not have a sports strategic plan for the past four years, but other work has been done to continue improving the quality of Seychelles’ sport. To continue on this same wavelength, we are now engaging all stakeholders in writing a successor policy to the old one,” said Mr Larue.

The review process and writing of the new sports strategic plan follows the appointment, late last month, of the new NSC board chaired by Mr Larue. The other members are Alain Volcère (chief executive and secretary), Antonio Gopal, Patrick Vel, Patrick Hoareau, Jourdanne Immer, Odile Octave, Christian Lionnet and Roland Raforme.

G. G.