Safe Sports Commission launched

All stakeholders in sports here in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), have been called out to ensure that participation in sports at all levels is “safe”.

That was the overarching need identified following a panel discussion held at the Beach Combers Hotel at Villa, on Thursday, December 5, 2024, at the launch of the Safe Sports Commission of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Olympic Committee.

The commission is also calling on all national sporting bodies and community groups, among others, to sensitize their membership on the dire need to have sports played in a safe physical and psychological non -threatening setting.

The launch, held under theme: “ Bridging the gap between sports and safety”, saw the expert panel comprising Keith Joseph, President of the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC), who participated remotely; Dr Alisa Alves, Clinical Psychologist; Police Sergeant, Stephen Billy; along with Shimano Bailey, Lead of the Safe Sports Commission; and Moureeze Franklyn, a lawyer, delineating and elucidating the many sided aspects of safe sports.

The interactive discussion proved fruitful, as several matters pertaining to “law, ethics and culture” were raised in relation to safe sports within the Vincentian context.

Assessing the outcome of the launch, Bailey said, “Safeguarding our athletes is not new to us”, adding that it is something they have always done, and giving as an example, the presence of chaperones to accompany female athletes at events.

“However, it was exemplified by the USA Gymnastics scandal and it became a sporting reckoning,” Bailey noted.

Referring the US saga as a “Come to Jesus moment”, Bailey said as a consequence, “we saw attacks on athletes’ mental and physical health and well-being, and the lifelong scars their abuse leaves”.

This, he explained, prompted a greater push for “safe sports”, within the sphere of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Following the launch, the Bailey led- Commission, along with Neeka Anderson-Isaacs; Akiyama Johnson; Dellon Durrant; Kia Prince; Sorenya Miller; and Kellisha Ashton-Yorke, have been tasked with having safe sports take root as a policing governing agent.

“Within the next few months, there should be another phase in terms of training safeguarding officers, and working with the other stakeholders, because we can’t do this alone; it has to take everybody”, Bailey pointed out.

Apart from the training, vigilance and constant education of all parties, Sergeant Billy, another of the panellists, is advocating the enactment and enforcement of policies at all levels within sporting organizations.

“It is high time [for]sporting bodies to enact safeguarding policies to protect our athletes. My vested interest in this is to see a policy that really [has]teeth and bites; when it is ethically wrong, deal with it from the organizational standpoint; when it is against the law of St Vincent and the Grenadines, deal with it from that point of view,” the law officer stated.

Bailey, endorsing this view, underscored the need to have synergies with the policies in order to avoid “contradictions”.