Advancing Women in Sport in the Turks & Caicos Islands
Advancing Women in Sport in the Turks & Caicos Islands
By Nora Sheffe (Canadian SportWORKS Officer)
For a week in February, I had the pleasure of working in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) with local leaders from the newly formed Women in Sport (WIS) Association. WIS was formed with the support of the government and the local Commonwealth Games Association, to increase the number of opportunities in sport and physical activity for girls and women, similar to the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport (CAAWS).
My role was 2 fold, work with the national executive to craft a strategic plan and engage local leaders to create grass roots program plans.
As a facilitator, I’m accustomed to being flexible in both process and approach. Being flexible in a Canadian context means occasionally starting a meeting a few minutes late, making accommodations for participants who need to leave meetings early and occasionally rescheduling a session. In the TCI context, flexible can mean that you’ll need to work with the power off for 24 hours, or the meeting with the 8 executive members will only have 2 members for the first hour and then a different two for the second hour. The local culture allows for this flexibility of approach and participation, so we continually adjusted our process and thereby valued each contribution and engaged everyone. This ensured the planning exercise was larger than any one single individual and will contribute to the success of the women in sport movement.
During my week, I also had a chance to work with grass root sport leaders to create program plans designed to get for more girls and women involved. Local leaders gathered to discuss sports and clubs that are at various stages of development. At the end of the day, each sport had their own list of action plans for 2014 which included: creating a softball league, establishing a beach volleyball program, expanding the Track club and forming a fitness club.
In addition to expanding programs, one sport is planning to undertake a significant facility reconstruction. Hurricane Ike in 2009 destroyed the only netball court on one of the islands and thus wiped out the entire sport. The former players, now University age, are keen to rebuild the court and create a new generation of netball players. In an impoverished island, a project of this scale is a massive undertaking and will involve sizable contributions from stakeholders. I'm confident in the commitment to rebuild the facility and expect that it will be completed in this calendar year.
One advantage that outside leaders enjoy is having notoriety and credibility which can be leveraged to move projects forward. In addition to the extensive television and radio coverage that women in sport received during my visit, I was also able to have a 45 minute meeting with the Minister of Sport. During our discussion, she underlined her commitment to working with the newly formed women in sport association and to supporting the reconstruction of the netball facility.
Since my visit, there has already been progress - the location for the new netball facility has been finalized and construction plans are being discussed. Also, the new fitness club held a kick off event that attracted 50 participants to a walk that started at 5am!
I will continue to liaise with the leaders of WIS during the coming weeks and months as their programs unfold and as the netball facility is constructed. I will use my leverage as an external sport leader to support the progress and remove any obstacles that may arise.
In a country that has a newly-formed WIS association, it was exciting to see them build a robust foundation for their success with the wisdom and thoughtful actions of their leaders and to have a small part in shaping their future.
