BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
THE Solomon Islands National Institute of Sport in Honiara is currently working hard to address two particular welfare challenges faced by athletes preparing to represent the country in the Pacific Games 2023 in November, which are transportation and food packaging.
According to Solomon Islands National Institute of Sport (SINIS) High-Performance Executive Director Aaron Alsop, over the past 18 months until now, the SINIS Athlete Advisory Group has helped to identify the gaps and challenges faced by local athletes when accessing the High-Performance services and programs at National Institute of Sport.
Aaron Alsop said they have now taken into account the specific welfare challenges and concerns of athletes, adding SINIS is proud to share with the public that we would be offering bus services and food packs for the athletes.
“We just let you that we have been working very, very hard to look after the athletes’ welfare, particularly around things like food and bus fare.
“We know that it’s a big challenge for them.
“So the part of the work we are doing over the last 18 months is that we have established the group called the Athlete Advisory Group which is representing the athletes from each of the sports.
“And we let them come in and talk to us about what are some of the challenges and concerns that they maybe have about how SINIS can better support them.
“We also know that SINIS isn’t the only organization that is looking after athletes, we also know that it includes Sporting Federations and the National Olympic Committee of Solomon Islands (NOCSI), but particularly for SINIS because of the investment the Government making here is that we know that there’s an obligation we go to contribute to those athletes.
“One thing that we are proud to share that going to be public knowledge soon is that we would be offering bus service for the athlete.
“We will be going through the process to procure a couple of buses and bring them from Westside to the east sides that athletes have got in and access to transport to and from training.
“We know that it is very challenging and costly with athletes spending $20 to $24 per day just on buses to get to training which is very challenging for a lot of athletes.
“The Government would be announcing that very soon. But it’s something that a lot of work is going around behind the scene to make sure that we can provide support to coaches and athletes.
“We are also going to do something around food packs for the athletes particularly on the recovery foods aimed for athletes who demand a lot or more nutrition because of the type of trainings that they do.
“At the moment, we are working around the options on how to access the food products with local sponsors like SolTuna and SolRice whether it can be through cash and vouchers.
“We would be excited to announce that very soon.
“But there’s a lot of thing happening at SINIS where the public are unaware of behind the scene and I can guarantee you all that we are working pretty hard to make sure that support happens, waiting or the Pacific Games to making sure the athletes are taking care of,” Aaron Alsop noted.
