Ollivierre embarks on upping participation in football in SVG

Technical Director of St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Football Keith Ollivierre is embarking on getting more persons to participate in the sport here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.{{more}}

And he hopes to do so through a project which is part of a thesis he is currently working on.

Ollivierre recently returned to the state after completing five weeks of training at the University of Delaware and at the US Olympic Training Center at Colorado Springs in Colorado, in the United States of America, as part of the International Coaching Enrichment Certification Programme (ICECP).

Ollivierre outlined the process he is using to increase participation to SEARCHLIGHT, in which he is zooming in on “strengthening the Grassroots programme”.

“…It will be done in two phases; first on the Leeward side, with the second phase on the Windward side of the island… Then I will do an evaluation of the programme ….The whole idea about the project though is that I am going to see if I can balance sports with the academics”, Ollivierre noted.

A former St Vincent and the Grenadines footballer, Ollivierre said that he will be targeting the schools as well as the various communities in the process.

“… I will also be having a coaches’ programme, because I am basing it on a model called “the Long-term Development Athletics Model”, which will be from the fundamentals to the elite level”, he said.

Following the completion of the project, Ollivierre is required to defend his thesis, and if successful, he would be on his way towards implementation.

Reflecting on his stint in the USA, Ollivierre revealed that he was able to gather a lot of first hand experiences, which consisted of lectures, projects, guest speakers, participant presentations, group work, field trips and project planning.

He stated that he received varied training in sports development, sports management, sports injury treatment and prevention, sports psychology and physiology, among other areas of instruction.

Ollivierre’s participation was made possible by funding from Olympic Solidarity, through the National Olympic Committee of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Before Ollivierre, others who have benefited from the ICCP have been Rosmund Griffith and Rawlson Morgan – track and field; Khalique Bailey – table tennis and Eardley Martin – volleyball.(RT)