Sierra Leone Sport Policy Re-launched

The Cabinet of Sierra Leone have approved a Sport Policy for the smooth running of sport and rapid growth in the development and structuring of sport in the country.

According to the Deputy Sport Minister Ishmael Al Sankoh Conteh, after thorough research they found out that setting up a Sport Policy for Sierra Leone is very important because the country is joining other commonwealth countries that are actually performing well in sport and are far ahead in terms of the development of sports due to the proper structures they put in place years back.

He said the reason for the good result those countries have been producing in both local and international competitions was due to the frame work they have been implementing since they put together their Sport Policies and those are the policies their government used to map out and solve their problems in sport.

He mentioned that Sierra Leone will soon begin to work in line with the Sport Policy which entails a broad vision to empower young Sierra Leonean athletes that have potential in sport by capacitating and providing them with the necessary standard sporting equipment so that they will be able to compete and win laurels for the country in national and international competition.

He said the mission is to compliment the effort of the private sector so that they will be able to mobilize the resources because for quite a long time they have noticed that the private sector have not been giving support to sport and that the companies or institution giving support to sport are limited.

“Because of all this reason we are going to open up and allow more people with good intention for sport to come on board and help in the rapid development of sport in the country.

We are going to popularize the Policy by reaching out to the sport administrators, the private sector, journalists and the athletes. We will also lunch this document to those concerns in sports and our sponsors.

We will explain the role of each of them to play so that we all will achieve our goal. In the policy we also look at sport education so that school will have it as part of their curriculum so that they will integrate it as part of their educational program in order for us to build up more sport personalities and have the right athletes representing the country at the right age.”

“We also look at organizing trainings for administrators annually. The Sport Policy is different for the Sport Council Act. The Sport Council Act explains the role of the sport council and how to run the sports whilst the Sport Policy is the frame work and road map for the structuring and development of sport in the country” Al Sankoh reiterated.

Bernard Turay report