Coaches across the island will soon be tasked with scouting for new talent in various communities and schools as government expands its community coaches programme.
Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment Charles Griffith explained that the initiative is designed to widen the net for talent discovery while boosting youth participation in sports. The minister spoke to Barbados TODAY at the handing-over ceremony of the refurbished tennis court at The St. Michael School on Tuesday.
“The process from the Ministry of Sports is to broaden the net as it relates to getting our young people involved in sports. One of the ways that we’re looking to do that is to start to expand a community coaches programme. We would have started this programme with football, and the intention is to look at some of the popular sports that are currently happening and identify individuals from within the different parishes and communities, to train them as coaches,” he said.
Griffith added that once trained, coaches will return to their communities to form groups and engage young people using local facilities. This, he stressed, is key to both identifying potential national athletes and reducing crime.
“The only way that we’re going to identify talent is if we can broaden the base of the amount of youngsters who are involved in sports. Have somebody present to identify talent, those guys who look as if the potential is there for them to go further in the sport. Then what we can do is put another programme in place to harness the skills of those youngsters. In that way, it is a win-win situation,” he said.
The minister gave the assurance that requests from schools for coaching support will be met. “If a request is made from secondary schools to have one of our coaches come to the school to do training, then we’re not averse to doing that at all. It would have happened before and it is something that we can continue to do. Anything that will help empower our young people and help them hone their sporting skills, we stand ready as a government to do that,” he said.
Griffith maintained that while Barbados currently has sufficient coaches, the programme will create more opportunities for young people interested in coaching at the community level to contribute.
“This community coaching programme is one such initiative that will help us to get coaches on the ground at the local level,” he added. (LG)
