FROM helping them stay in school and assiting their academic capabilities, to helping them find themselves and facilitating the opportunity for them to be healthy, sports in Guyana has helped, and continues to help, women all across the region in a vast array of ways. This was one of the reports at the basis of one of the presentations made at the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) Women and Sport Seminar, which began yesterday at the National Resource Centre on Woolford Avenue.
“What sport means for me was a means to discover myself.I was a quiet person never wanting to be in the spotlight, couldn’t even speak to anyone, but through doing sports and getting involved in different activities,I’m becoming more bold.” said one athlete during a report on “What I Get Out of Sport?” by Guyana’s Commonwealth Games silver medalist Aliann Pompey.
Beginning at 9.00hrs yesterday morning, the event started off with remarks from GOA President, K. A. Juman-Yassin, and Minister responsible for sport, Nicollette Henry, before it was officially declared open by Guyana’s First Lady Mrs. Sandra Granger.
In her opening remarks, the First Lady said she is pleased to note that the forum aims to create a network of women in sport in Guyana with the view of establishing a database of Women in Sport.
“[This is] extremely important since your network will hopefully create a supporting mechanism for women, who participate in sport throughout the country and your database will provide the empirical data you need to assess your status and assist you in planning for your development and expansion,” Mrs. Granger said.
Seen as pivotal in bringing attention to women in sports and the challenges they face, GOA VP, Karen Pilgrim, said that hosting the seminar was in the works since last year December, when the GOA began putting together the proposal for the funding to host the event.
“We think it’s important in order to empower women in sports.” Yassin commented.
Additionally, Yassin noted,the seminar is also geared at targeting women officials in the interior as the GOA sets about planting the seeds of making sport more accessible in the interior districts. Participants included sporting stakeholders from nine of Guyana’s 10 administrative region.
“[We want] to be able to give to those women in the hinterland a knowledge of sports, what could be done, what they should do and to be able, hopefully, to introduce some level of sports in the interior which could be done right there. I’m certain that this could be the catalyst for things to come in the interior.” Yassin explained.
A total of 55 stakeholders attended the first day of the two day session. The audience was largely made up of physical education teachers, while it also included coaches, athletes and other officials from various sports federations in Guyana.
Patrons heard of the “Benefits of Physical Exercise for Girls and Women” from Seon Erskine, and an informative session on “Re-positioning Sport to Women” by Tricia Fiedtkou.
During Inga Henry’s presentation on ‘Factors Contributing to Girls’ Physical Inactivity within the School System in Guyana’ the audience heard how myths such as ‘sports makes women infertile’, ‘all girls and women in sports are lesbians’ and ‘women should only play certain types of sports’ are wrongfully dissuading women from participating in sport.
The seminar also touched on “Disability and Sport” through touching presentations by deaf Peace Corps volunteer Lori Karker and swimming coach Jaime Skeete.
A very interactive session by Lavern Fraser showed participants all about “How to Balance Family Life, Career and Sport”, while Abigail Caleb touched on “Nutrition and Women in Sport”.
The event continues today at the same venue.