THE EDITOR: Two of our ministers recently attended Jamaica's Champs track and field event. This was a great idea to expand the education of Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly (Education) and Shamfa Cudjoe (Sport and Community Development).

If their interest was really in coming up with a solution to our 'sporting pothole' they would have looked over their imaginary fences and chatted with former president of the TT Olympic Committee (TTOC) Larry Romany. He would have pulled a quotation from a 2012 article in which he said:

'Jamaica puts a qualified physical teacher into every school, but more than that, each physical education teacher in Jamaica is actually qualified in track and field so they are a coach as well as a phys-ed teacher and they go into the system, and that is why Jamaica has had such success - because there is a focused attempt, a strategic intent on creating track and field stars.'

If the Minister of Sport was curious about why Jamaica is dominating track and field globally, she would have reached out to former national hockey player Dr Iva Gloudon, who is also a former high commissioner to Jamaica, and she might have explained that Jamaica's Champs has been staged more than 100 years.

There are so many people 'over the fence' who could share solutions to our sport and social issues and are ignored because of the perceived "colour of their allegiance.

I hope that the two ministers return home with the understanding that Champs is a grassroots activity for which the average Jamaican will find an old school tie, or socks, or T-shirt, or undersized shorts and proudly strut their stuff while rooting for their secondary school and reliving long lost memories.

When an activity assumes the cultural significance of Champs, it is an easy sell. But Champs is more than the expression of sport and culture, it is the culmination of years of hard work.

During my Caribbean Games experience, my mantra was 'sport must become the weapon of choice for our youth.' I still believe in the potential and possibility of this statement, but it will only become a reality when we devote the time and effort to craft the strategy for the sports industry. Of course, this has been done before but our leaders choose not to build on previously laid foundations but to smash any bases that exist.

As blood continues to fertilise our land and our people flounder, it is urgent that we put a strategic plan in place to capture the imagination of our youth and fire up our people's passion for sport and culture.

Whatever we do, there is the grim recognition that it may be another generation before we reap the rewards. But if action is taken now, my generation may pass on confident in the knowledge that our future sports people will thrive in a nurturing, passionate environment.

DENNISE DEMMING

Diego Martin