THE Oceania National Olympic Committee (ONOC) team led by Sainimili Talatoka the Coordinator of the Oceania Sports Education Program (OSEP) held an eye opener workshop for national federations (NFs) in the country this week.
The workshop called Readiness Assessment Tool (RAT) conveyed to NFs executives, coaches, team managers and athletes for the first time was an eye opener workshop for Solomon Islanders.
Mrs Talatoka told Star Sports the objective of the RAT workshop was to identify areas that need to be assisted in order for our NFs to flourish in regional and even Olympic competitions as well as the 2023 Pacific Games which will be hosted in our shore.
“RAT is an assessment program for all the NFs here in terms of their status so that we know what needs there are in Solomon Islands,” she said.
“So from there we will be able to identify what kind of support has been provided and what needs to be addressed with ONOC support.’’
She stressed from this RAT workshop her team will evaluate the inputs provided by the NFs during the workshop and will provide response through their OSEP program.
“From here we will start to bring training programs that need experts support to help NFs to get more organised and run better competitions so that athletes are better prepared for their games.”
She also said other pacific Islands countries have gone through the program and has achieved better results.
Meanwhile president of the Volleyball Federation Morris Maitaki said RAT workshop is a very important component that will help our NFs to flourish comes 2023 pacific Games.
“This assessment workshop is more like a self-test for each federation’s which they need to analyse the key areas they need to improve on.
“If federation honestly analyse their assessment it will give them the right picture of where want to be in the five years’ time.
“So I believe we are in a right track to be given the opportunity to have this program in preparation for 2023 Pacific Games,’’ he insisted.
During the workshop on Wednesday Sainimili challenged the participants if they want to beat Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia etc they must be serious about the program and seek support from ONOC through NOCSI collaboration.
By CROFTON UTUKANA
