Gros Islet Sec. Student Supplies Winning Logo for Programme.
GROS ISLET Secondary School’s art student Christopher Koulen captured the top prize for the logo competition that was launched last year amongst schools on the island to reflect the movement towards Physical Literacy.
Koulen along with the second place winner Fayola Lubin from Sir Arthur Lewis Community College and third place winner Raymanius Theodore representing the Aux Lyon Combined School were presented with their awards / tokens of appreciation at a special function held at the Conference Room of the AubergeSeraphine Hotel.
Physical Literacy is at the foundation of the Long Term Athlete Development Programme (LTAD), being spearheaded in Saint Lucia by the Saint Lucia Olympic Committee Incorporated, the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports in collaboration with other stakeholders.
In addressing the gathering at the presentation ceremony, President of the SLOC Fortuna Belrose reminded the participants that they had begun this journey towards the end of July last year funded by Olympic Solidarity. She said: “As an Olympic committee we recognized that if our Saint Lucia is to consistently deliver at the Olympics, or even perform consistently well across the world, we need to get down to the basics to make that happen. We need our citizens to be physically literate; not only for their health’s sake, but more importantly they must stand ready with the skills at the relevant time in the development – to be developmentally ready or competitive in sport”.
Belrose said the winning logo had been modified a bit and it will become part of the landscape of the sporting programmes in Saint Lucia. She said: “When we launched the search for the logo, I said if that logo were to disappear from the radar after we launched it, it means that we all would have failed our country: the SLOC, the government, in particular the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, the Ministry of Education, Human Resource Development and Labour, the Ministry of Health Wellness, Human Services and Gender Relations, the national sports federations, the district youth and sports councils, the private sector. All of us in some way have a responsibility to contribute to ensuring that what we are doing here today survives through the times and leaves a legacy of health and well-being and successful sports programming in our country.
“We cannot blame each other if it doesn’t happen. We cannot seek power from each other, if we don’t do what we need to do. There are clear roles in the scheme of things. The ministry has its role; the Olympic committee has its role; the associations have their role; the schools – everybody who is a part of this process with us today do have a very clear role to play.
“For the St Lucia Olympic Committee we’re about extracting the best talent and facilitating the process for global recognition for Saint Lucia. That’s our priority”, she said.
Belrose defined physical literacy as “the recognition and appreciation of physical activity supported by active participation in movement activities.” She challenged those present to engage in some sort of form of physical activity. “Do that for the sake of your own health, you need to do it so that you can encourage others to do the same. And you can assist in lessening the burden on our health care system if you are also healthy”.
Buzz Erlinger – Forde, who represented the Tennis Association on the LTADP team in Canada earlier this year said: “The winning logo was chosen because it best embodies the concepts we’re bringing to life with this movement. It has an iconic, distinctly Saint Lucian look and it gets the message across better than all the others. Not that the others were bad, but this one just got it all together. The description reflects an exciting culture of activity and athleticism for the people of Saint Lucia, who were always an exuberant nation at heart. Saint Lucia’s new emphasis on health and wellness for all ages and both genders is illustrated by a family group jumping with confidence and power, and reaching for higher heights between the iconic twin peaks, that are the unforgettable symbol of our beautiful island nation”.
He continued: “We’d like to carry that spirit of the movement with us so that it becomes a part of us. We become the physical, happy, strong, confident people that we always have been. We haven’t changed; some of our behaviours have changed”.
