KINGSTON, JAMAICA — The lately concluded GAPS (Collect, Modify, Put together, Maintain) Camp, held on the College of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus, has been hailed as a groundbreaking milestone within the development of para sport throughout the Caribbean.
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In solely its second staging in Jamaica, the camp has already earned recognition from the Worldwide Paralympic Committee (IPC) because the regional hub for para sport growth.
Over 5 immersive days, the camp created an setting of empowerment, training, and elite coaching for para-athletes and coaches from six Caribbean nations: Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Grenada, and Dominica.
Empowering by experience: A regional coaching catalyst
A robust collaboration among the many Jamaica Paralympic Affiliation (JPA), Jamaica Commonwealth Affiliation (JCA), Commonwealth Sport (CS), and UWI, the GAPS Camp delivered high-level technical monitor and discipline classes tailor-made to the wants of para-athletes. These had been mixed with teaching methods, talent refinement, and deeply related conversations across the broader societal challenges confronted by individuals with disabilities in sport.
The programme was facilitated by Ryan Brathwaite of Commonwealth Sport, who praised its attain and resonance:
“The programme was a powerful success, bringing collectively para-athletes and coaches from six nations throughout the area for an intensive week of sensible coaching and growth.”
A coaching floor for excellence, a platform for change
For JPA President Christopher Samuda, the camp symbolized greater than technical mastery—it embodied goal and transformation.
“This distinctive and superb Caribbean activation of sport coaching and training not solely engages the thoughts and physique however does so within the context of Paralympic rules, with out which the worth and integrity of information and success could be misplaced and their forex compromised.”
Certainly, the GAPS initiative goals to be greater than a camp—it aspires to be a motion.
Imaginative and prescient for the long run: From Jamaica to the Commonwealth
Buoyed by the success of this version, plans are already in movement to broaden the GAPS initiative throughout all Commonwealth territories within the area, additional solidifying its function as a cornerstone of para sport growth.
Samuda additional emphasised the transformative energy of the programme:
“The GAPS Camp is a Caribbean oasis of training in sport. It’s all about renewing the thoughts, innovating thought, constructing experience, making a knowledge-based infrastructure, and capitalizing partnerships.”
An area of belonging, a celebration of braveness
Brathwaite, whose management stays instrumental in Jamaica’s rollout of the programme, mirrored on its deeper impression:
“It provided a transformative house to foster belonging, inclusion, and cultural trade—and to listen to inspirational tales from main para-athletes which ignited a renewed regional dedication to constructing a extra inclusive sporting panorama for all.”
Because the GAPS Camp continues to develop, it carries with it the hopes of a extra inclusive, empowered, and united sporting future—the place each athlete, no matter potential, is given the chance to rise.
