St. Vincent and the Grenadines Amateur Swimming Association
P.O. Box 600, St. Vincent, West Indies
Email: svgasa@gmail.com
PRESS RELEASE
Partnership with the SVGASA
The St Vincent and the Grenadines Amateur Swimming Association (SVGASA) has been active for several years and is now at a stage of its development where it needs partnerships in order to continue and develop its mission to promote swimming as a lifelong healthy activity. The emphasis is on encouraging the youth on both recreational and competitive aspects of swimming.
Our society puts tremendous emphasis on the academic education of our children. This is correct but it is also important to see the role that sports can play in developing character and discipline. Swimming is one of the few sports that requires little resources to start and is an ideal sport for significant parts of our country. It also offers academic opportunities to those who excel in the form of scholarships at universities.
The SVGASA has reached out to several businesses to offer them the opportunity to partner with us to develop swimming. Given the challenges of our economic conditions, we are acutely aware of the need to stress a partnership in which all parties can benefit. The SVGASA has decided to seek partnership with a maximum of six businesses. The goal of the SVGASA is to attract two Gold partners and four Silver partners as fulltime supporters of the Association with a minimum two year commitment.
We are very pleased to announce that the Bank of Nova Scotia has agreed to be our first Gold Partner. Scotiabank has committed to assist the SVGASA over the next two years to continue its mandate to develop swimming in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Scotiabank is extremely well known not only for their banking services but also their support in the local communities in which they operate. They are particularly well recognized for their support of children’s cricket. The fact that they have now agreed to assist swimming is confirms the fact that they see swimming as an excellent development vehicle for the youth of our country.
The SVGASA has made some very important strides in the last two years. With the assistance of the National Sports Council and numerous private individuals we have been able to secure a swimming pool facility at Ratho Mill. Since the opening of the pool (and the corresponding ability to conduct proper practices) we have seen dramatic improvements in the quality of swimmers.Our plans for the future include:
a. Development of a Grass Roots program to reach community youths. We plan to start with children from two poor communities and hope to involve at least 40 children in swimming.
b. Learn to swim programs. We live in a small country surrounded by water and yet very few people can swim properly. We will expand our Learn to swim program for both children and adults. We also expect to offer coaching programs to at least five coaches in communities outside Kingstown. These coaches can then work in their own communities to develop swimmers.
c. Open water programs. The international body for swimming, FINA, has put major emphasis on Open Water Swimming (OWS). With our abundant coast lines, this is a natural area of development for us. There are now numerous competitions around the world that offer significant prize money for OWS.
d. Continued Development of School’s Swimming Programs. We have started with the Girls High School. Currently in excess of 50 of their students use the pool facility. We hope to expand this program to at least four other schools and to train PE teachers within the schools.
e. Talent Identification Programs. National pride is often driven by sporting success (witness Usain Bolt in Jamaica, Kirani James in Grenada or George Bovell in Trinidad). The SVGASA will execute a program to identify those individuals who have a natural talent for swimming and can compete at the international level.
f. Continued emphasis on recreational swimming.
g. Further development of our competitive national team through continued training facilitated by both local and international coaches; in addition to other activities.
We have been able to send swimmers throughout the region to compete. Swimmers have won gold medals at the OECS Championships and the Barbados National Championships. The SVGASA sent a team to the World Championships held in December in Istanbul, Turkey courtesy of funding provided by FINA. Both George Bovell of Trinidad and Alia Atkinson of Jamaica won silver medals at this World Championships.
The SVGASA competitive swimming program for the year (and future years) will include competing at the following events:
i. OECS
ii. Caribbean Championships (CARIFTA)
iii. Caribbean and Central American Championships (CCCAN)
iv. World Championships
v. The association is also focused on developing competitive swimmers for the 2014 Commonwealth games and youth Olympics; the 2015 PAN American games; the 2016 Olympic games to be held in Rio de Janeiro Brazil.
Funding for the travel and training of the national team will be sought from a combination of private sources: the National Lottery, the National Olympic Committee and FINA.
We hope to use the funds obtained from our Gold Partners to maintain the pool facilities and assist with our grassroots, open water and schools program.
We are very grateful to the National Olympic Committee (NOC) who have provided funding to keep the pool facilities operational for the last six months and to provide and experienced regional coach to assist our local coaches and our young swimmers. We hope to continue working with the NOC to develop swimming.
The Association recognizes the limitations of its current facilities and will be working to expand these facilities. We hope to seek the assistance of the National Lottery in this endeavour.
We thank the Bank of Nova Scotia for their support and we in turn pledge our support to them.
Please contact us at svgasa@gmail.com with any queries, comments or suggestions you may have in regard to swimming.