LOCAL sportsmen/ women and organizations that performed

outstandingly in 2012, were honoured on Saturday evening when the National Sports Commission (NSC) held its Annual Sports Awards Ceremony at the International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
Heading the list of awardees were Guyana and West Indies cricketer Shivnarine Chanderpaul (Men) and international squash player Nicolette Fernandes (Women).
Both were absent from Saturday evening’s ceremony due to international duties, however, Nicolette’s mom Luana collected the award on her behalf, while Avenash Ramzan who also won the non-print journalist award received on Chanderpaul’s behalf.
In delivering the feature address Minister of Sport Dr. Frank Anthony issued a call for corporate Guyana to get on board, where, sponsorship for athletes and sports associations are concerned.
Dr. Anthony alluded to the fact that his government is aware of the great benefits of sports whether as an individual, community or country.
He said the Government of Guyana would like to facilitate persons playing more, and to this end has spent over $200M on the upgrade of community grounds which is to give Guyanese access to improved community facilities.
The Minister alluded to the fact that sport has tremendous value for the country but what is needed is a revival of the community spirit.
He said what is needed for this to happen is, to have a revival of friendly competitions, this he said will see a drop in anti social behavior.
“When teams from these communities play, they are not just a bunch of individuals, but they represent community pride and honour.” The minister stated adding, “We need to revive this type of rivalry and use sports as the glue to integrate our communities, making them more cohesive and wholesome places to live.”
He then lamented the fact that with all the benefits that sports bring to individuals, communities and a country, it is disappointing that the private sector and non-governmental organizations have underinvested in sports.
He pointed out that most of corporate Guyana sponsorship has been funneled into event sponsorship and said while that might bring some amount of public relations value and make profits for a relative few, it does very little to improve the particular sport, the athletes’ welfare or the facilities.
According to Dr. Anthony, Guyana needs a different model for private sector investment into sports and he would like to see the private sector and non-governmental organizations invest into the development of sports facilities.
To get home his point, the Minister explained that in the United States, the private sector has invested in many of the sports infrastructure, and they own and operate them at a significant profit.
This model is working in the US the minister stated “because they have sports entrepreneurs, they have philanthropic businessmen, they have banks that are willing to help for social good, they have companies that are willing to donate substantially as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes,” Dr. Anthony lamented, and asked “where are our equivalent institutions and people with this social conscious.”
“We have to change this and I hope that we can all work to encourage the private sector to invest in developmental sports programmes and in sports facilities, things that will make a more meaningful contribution to the development of sports in Guyana.”
Meanwhile, other persons that received awards were power lifters Winston Frank Stoby (runner-up Sportsman and Dawn McCalmont Barker (runner-up sportswoman), cyclist Paul DeNobrega (junior sportsman) and table tennis player Chelsea Edghill (junior sportswoman).
The runners up in these two categories are Gumendra Shewdas and Priyana Ramdhani and Mary Fung-A-Fat who were joint runners-up in the female category.
The Sports team of the Year award went to the Guyana Junior Squash Team, while squash coach Carl Ince won the Sports Coach of the Year award.
The male and female sports official awards went to Guyana Boxing Board of Control’s president Peter Abdool and Guyana Amateur Swimming Association’s Stephanie Gomes-Fraser, with the Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Association being named Sports Association of the Year, while the Guyana Squash Association received the award for being the Most Improved Association for 2012.
Chronicle Sports’ Calvin Roberts won the Sports Journalist (Print) of the Year award while Stabroek News’ Orlando Charles won the sports photographer award and Berbice’s table tennis player Gibran Hussein Sarfaraz, the Person with Disability Award.