Wed | Sep 17, 2025

Paralympic association to host grass-roots camps

Published:Wednesday | August 13, 2025 | 12:12 AM
Christopher Samuda, (left) president of the Jamaica Olympic and Jamaica Paralympic Associations, chats with athlete Nathaniel Bailey at the I’m Phenomenal and Paralympic Day press briefing held at the Jamaica Olympic Association’s head office on Cunn
Rudolph Brown
Christopher Samuda, (left) president of the Jamaica Olympic and Jamaica Paralympic Associations, chats with athlete Nathaniel Bailey at the I’m Phenomenal and Paralympic Day press briefing held at the Jamaica Olympic Association’s head office on Cunningham Avenue in Kingston on Tuesday, February 28.

THE JAMAICA Paralympic Association (JPA) is set to host two intensive grass-roots training camps this month aimed at expanding opportunities for para athletes, coaches, and officials while laying the foundation for long-term growth in Paralympic sport across the island.

The first camp, focused on wheelchair fencing, will take place from August 18–21 at the Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre and Hope Valley Experimental School. A second camp, dedicated to para powerlifting, will be held from August 25–27 at the same venue, with an additional day at New Phase Gym.

These camps are part of a series of events under the GrassRoots Project, which will culminate with the JPA’s conference and festival in September. The initiative, supported by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and Americas Paralympic Committee, is being delivered in strategic partnership with the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport and World Para Fencing.

Bringing international expertise directly to Jamaica, the training will provide more than 30 participants with world-class technical instruction while also fostering an inclusive sporting environment.

The approach reflects the JPA’s broader mission to expand the range of sporting opportunities for persons with disabilities and to strengthen the national talent pipeline for future regional and global competitions.

Christopher Samuda, president of the JPA, underscored the organisation’s commitment to athlete development and legacy building.

“At the JPA, we are all about empowering our athletes, coaches, and officials and giving our youth choices as they seek to self-actualise in the arena of sports,” Samuda explained.

“The camps in para fencing and para powerlifting will provide more options and are opportunities the JPA is providing to athletes, coaches, and officials – our local internal stakeholders – to learn from experts, build self-knowledge, create an insatiable appetite for excellence, and be inspired to leave a legacy.”

That vision for empowerment is shared by the Americas Paralympic Committee, which views the GrassRoots Project as a transformative step for the entire region.

“Thanks to the visionary support of the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and in strategic partnership with the Jamaica Paralympic Association and the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the GrassRoots Project sets out to dismantle three long-standing barriers: technical capacity, accessibility, and sustainability,” said Michele Formonte, executive director of the Americas Paralympic Committee.

“… participants will learn from world para fencing and world para powerlifting experts. Yet the true value is not the curriculum. It is the mission each participant takes home, to multiply inclusion, to turn an empty court into a field of dreams. Para sport is more than competition. It is education, health, equality, and dignity. Let us keep building a Caribbean where opportunity is defined by effort, never by circumstance.”

The GrassRoots Project is designed not only to prepare Jamaica’s next generation of Paralympians but to create a regional blueprint that can be replicated in Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, and beyond.