THE MINISTRY of Culture, Youth and Sports has reported that 2009 was a hectic but successful year, the crowning of which was the recent visit by legendary Brazilian footballer, ‘King Pele’.

At the year-end press conference yesterday, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Dr Frank Anthony disclosed that the ministry has been victorious in rejuvenating sports at the community level, and that it has succeeded in holding a series of inter-block games, inclusive of volleyball, basketball and football, across the country to encourage people of all ages to get involved in sports.

“These games also served the purpose of getting idle youths onto the playing field, and we have viewed this as a useful programme,” Dr Anthony said, adding that the ministry has received recommendations to expand its community games project in 2010 to even more communities.

“During the year, we bought a lot of basketball backboards and presented them to several communities to enhance the game at the community level. The whole idea is to use sports as a vehicle to bring people of diverse backgrounds together and we have seen progress in this area,” he said.

He noted the highlighting of the ministry’s annual ‘Day of Interaction’ at Port Mourant, Berbice when all the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC) brought out teams to compete.

“This has given us a good model of how to organise these days of interaction next year,” he said.

Interaction days were also held in West Demerara, Essequibo, Linden and for the first time in the Berbice River, where sports equipment were distributed to prepare them for participation.

With regards to health and wellbeing, the sports ministry recognised the global issue of obesity and so saw the need for exercise to counteract this problem.

On May 27, Guyana joined the international community in observing ‘World Challenge Day’, which is set aside to help prevent chronic, non-communicable diseases. The observance was introduced to Guyana two years ago and several activities were held to mark the day.

Minister Anthony stated that in 2010, Guyana will continue to lift awareness of the dangers of non-communicable diseases and the importance of physical activity.

For the first time in Guyana’s history, the ministry experimented with the ‘Big Ride’, which saw in excess of 500 cyclists. This and similar events are expected to be repeated next year.

“All of those activities have a singular focus of getting community participation and ordinary people to be part of sports and I think that it is working so we’re very pleased with the results we’ve got,” the minister said.

The ministry has also partnered with other institutions to help develop several sporting disciplines.

This includes the regular programme at Colgrain Pool; where persons are trained in swimming and programmes at the National Park which teach the art of cycling.

During the year, the ministry hosted its first Cricket Academy with assistance from the Guyana Cricket Board. This is to become an annual feature in the ministry’s developmental calendar.

In August, as is traditional, close to 6,000 children benefited from a number of Youths and Sports camps.

There was also the long established “Teach them young” programme which saw the tutoring of instructors who are offering Physical Education in schools.

Tutors were also trained in volleyball and table tennis by an international coach who came to Guyana to work with teachers.

Participants were given equipment to start programmes in schools at the end of the training exercise.

“We also focused on school programmes where we held a number of school competitions including basketball, volleyball, table tennis and the just concluded national chess championships,” the minister said, adding:

“Next year, through sponsorship from the US Cricket Association, we will introduce a 20/20 cricket tournament in the school system, with 150 school participating. This will also become an annual feature.”

During the year, work was started to resuscitate the Draughts Association of Guyana and an interim committee was set up. Through this effort, the annual draughts championship was reintroduced.

Speaking of the paralympics committee, Minister Anthony said that it cannot be admitted to the international organization, so a paralympic organisation had to be established.

The ministry also facilitated the initiation of the organisation with the constitution of the constituent body and which was able to hold the first national championship for persons with disability.

Minister Anthony revealed that work will continue during next year to have the organisation properly linked to the international body. (GINA)