PRESIDENT Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali’s push to develop sports in schools has piloted yet another initiative being rolled out this month within several regions.

This new initiative will see Karate being introduced in schools across the country.

This goal of the project is to strengthen discipline, focus, and respect among students while laying the foundation for inter-school karate competitions as well as national and international tournaments.

The initiative will be spearheaded by IKO Karate Academy Guyana in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport and is the brainchild of President Ali.

Technical official Aliya Wong says that they are developing a larger and more solid base of athletes in the sport of karate.

“We feel the sport of karate can grow even more than it is. Right now, globally the sport of karate is moving from a more traditional point of view to sport Karate where other incentives are given to athletes, so they can earn as they train. They are being compensated for their talent and the IKO Academy Guyana’s vision is to maintain youth development through sports, through the martial arts of karate and that is why we are focusing on introducing it to different communities and regions. We have cluster training going on in schools, we have branches in Linden and we have on the East Coast and East Bank we will continue this wide spread initiative; the more youths are involved the more we are able to impact their lives.”

Instructor and IKO Karate Academy official Wong says that they believe the initiative by the President can be a catalyst for the growth of sports at the grass root level.

She says they are pleased with the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport’s support as they seek to get into every region.

“He (President Ali) understands the benefit of Martial Arts; he understands the disciplines that come from it and not just the physical and emotional aspect but the mental benefit of Karate. The main aspect of getting it involved in schools is because we can help them with their cognatic development, the President in his discussion with us was basically highlighting that aspect of it, how can we get the youths more focused, more disciplined, creating well round individuals who can be leaders of our country.”

Wong says that continuous training done with physical education teachers has given them the manpower to execute this massive project.

“It is not an easy task; however, we have found a solution. We have created a timetable that our instructors are going to be implementing, that is where the cluster training comes in because of the magnitude of the schools that are interested. We have 48 schools that are involved and in order to touch all, we did clusters.  That means we meet at one particular school and we have our instructors there and we break the schools up into groups and we teach them, that way we are able to touch all the students and give them the attention that is needed,” Wong said.

As of this month, structured cluster karate training was introduced across key regions, including to students from Hope Secondary, Annandale Secondary, Golden Grove Secondary, President’s College, and Bygeval Secondary in Region 4; Abram Zuil Secondary, Aurora Secondary, Cotton Field Secondary, and Charity Secondary in Region 2; McKenzie High, Linden Foundation Secondary, Harmony Secondary, and New Silver City Secondary in Region 10; and North Ruimveldt Secondary along with other schools in Georgetown.

IKO- Academy Guyana is led by Sensei Jeffrey Wong who is also Vice-President of dojo development for the USA headquartered International Karate Organization.

Wong was part of a team that met with Minister within the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports Steven Jacobs this week to provide a update on the roll-out of the Karate in schools programme.