At least three important events have kept me busy since my last feedback. First up, we celebrated 202 days out from the Paralympics with the British navy on the frigate HMS Montrose in Simon’s Town.
It was a great occasion coming just days after Oscar Pistorius’ award-winning feat at the Laureus Awards in London. Without wishing to be nasty it was quite fun rubbing it into the Brits that we are battle-ready if we can go into their own backyard and take that Laureus award ahead of so many other luminaries in London.
I must say that the co-operation between us and the United Kingdom to use the frigate in order to highlight the Paralympics was extremely well received.
While I was still down in Cape Town I spend time with the Western Cape Sport School in Kuils River. This is all part of the process of looking for the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to arrive at, let’s call it a High Performance model for South Africa or an Academy System for the country.
We believe there are lessons to be learned from the Western Cape model and we would like to share it with all the Education and Sport Departments in the various provinces. There will be soon be a day workshop to deal with this matter.
We are also looking at a day with our tertiary institutions to gather information on this topic. Our aim is to table a discussion document soon and call for comment before finalising and presenting it to SRSA.
Then the Volunteer Programme has also been launched by the Minister and many veterans and legends were invited to the launch. The Volunteer programme seeks to invite people who have been involved in sport over the years, to step forward and help with the development of sport at school level.
This is a direct outcome of the discussions we had at the National Sports Indaba in Midrand late last year. The Department of Sport and Recreation will have a data base of all volunteers who can be called upon to assist in the schools.
SRSA and the CATHSSETA will work towards up-skilling these volunteers where necessary. We all believe the schools sport programme will succeed when we have enough people helping the schools with coaching.