THE double Silver Medal performance by Under-18 female field athlete Chantoba Bright from District 10 (Upper Demerara/ Kwakwani) and Linden was one of the bright spots when Guyana last weekend attended the Carifta Games in Grenada.

The performance of another District 10 400m male athlete Daniel Williams, who unfortunately had his Under-18 Silver Medal taken away because of a lane violation, should not be discounted and Linden should honour these young, upcoming athletes in the immediate future.

The bauxite mining town has since the days of it being called Mackenzie, and before independence in 1966, been a respected community, which produced national and international athletes.

But in 2015, we can proudly say that Linden had produced Guyana’s Sportswoman of the Year in middle-distance, teenage athlete Cassie George. A few years ago Linden produced its fifth-ever Sportswoman of the Year when national power lifter Dawn McCammon-Barker was chosen.

What future does the sportsmen and sportswomen have in the town, which is facing tremendous challenges with its sporting and recreational infrastructure?

Let us rewind just over 30 years ago when the Linden Sports Development Council was formed as then Minister of Sport Roy Fredericks had installed that body, and it was the only recognised affiliate to the National Sports Development Council.

I remember this body as it worked in tandem with the Regional Administration of the region in the planning for the successful 1985 Guyana Games in Linden; afterwards it became known as the Region 10 Sports Development Council, as it catered for the sportsmen and women in the entire region.

Regional Chairman of Region 10 (Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice) Renis Morian needs to sit down with the soon-to-be elected Mayor of Linden and his councillors and plan how they can revive the Region 10 Sports Development Council. They must also engage the various functioning sports associations and bodies to hear what are the priority areas that are in need of being addressed in the short and long terms.

When this is done, an effort must then be made to revive the Region 10 Sports Development Council. Let us not depend on our athletes being named at the national level to win such accolades, but honour them first at the regional level also. This may help them strive for greater heights, as not all of them will be able to reach the top like Dawn McCammon-Barker and young Cassie George of recent.

For starters therefore, the Region 10 Sports Development Council, an off-shoot of the National Sports Development Council back in 1985, should be installed after consultation with the active sports associations, which must satisfy certain criteria, before being allowed to be part of this process.

There is also the need for a Youth, Culture and Sports Officer in the region. Regional Chairman Renis Morian should now put systems in train to resuscitate the Region 10 Sports Development Council and ensure that it gets the same recognition it had received some three decades ago.

This sports council, I repeat, must comprise mainly active sports officials/administrators from the various functioning sports bodies in the region and coordinated, as it was then, by the Region 10 Culture Youth and Sports Officer, if there is one.

Why that Region 10 Sports Council died a natural death by the start of the 1990s one cannot be too sure, but the time is right for sportspersons to be given due recognition. This must be the starting point for the return of the annual Region 10 Sports Awards in 2016 in the mining town of Linden and the resuscitation of sports development in the region as a whole.