The much-talked about After School Activity Programme, with which Anguilla is being assisted by the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat, was launched at Campus B of the Abena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School on Tuesday, February 4.
Acting Director of Sports, Rollins Richardson, spoke to teachers, students and media representatives about the programme at the brief launching ceremony. “Anguilla has been chosen as one of the pilot countries along with St Lucia and Grenada,” he said. “This is a programme geared towards providing after school activities for young people between the ages of 14-25 years … It came about because we believe, not only in Anguilla, but throughout the Caribbean and the rest of the world, that persons need to be involved in more physical activity as well as living better lifestyles. This programme is geared to persons who are not usually engaged in sporting activities of a competitive nature.”
Mr Rollins recalled that last July, Mrs Chanelle Petty Barrett, Permanent Secretary responsible for Sports, received correspondence from the CARICOM Secretariat seeking Anguilla’s approval to be one of the islands for the pilot programme. Following that, personnel from CARICOM visited Anguilla and held discussions with officials in the Ministry and Departments of Education, Youth, Culture and Sports. This was followed by a Trainers of Trainers workshop in which twenty-one persons were trained to conduct the programme. These persons work in the school system, the Island Harbour Care Centre and the Department of Youth and Culture.
Mr Richardson explained that the programme was aimed at providing fun and life-skills for the participants, and would include such activities like wind ball cricket, rounders and a new sport called road tennis. He pointed out that the participating students would have an opportunity to decide on the rules of the sport of their choice.
“We want to encourage you to sign up with Mr Nigel Linton, the Leader of the programme for Campus B, to join these activity sessions,” Mr Richardson told the students. “You will have the opportunity to engage in physical activities for at least one hour or an-hour-and-a-half after school twice weekly. We are working on transportation to take you home afterwards. We are encouraging you to become engaged in this after school programme so that you can improve your general health through physical activity. We hope that going forward we will have other life-skills that you will learn such as responsibility, integrity, honesty – and we can have a better school population and, in turn, a better Anguilla.”
Deputy Principal, Mrs Melsadis Fleming, said the school was honoured to be part of the CARICOM-initiated Caribbean-wide After School Activity Programme. She observed that Campus B had a very strong culture of sporting activities and that the programme would make that even stronger.
“We at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School endorse this programme and encourage you, our students, to make it part of your extra-curricular activities,” Mrs Fleming added. “As we build a better Anguilla, we are using this programme to help to change lives.”
