By Carlena Knight
The St Mary’s Secondary School (SMSS) basketball team will sport a new set of uniforms as it continues the quest for dominance in the ongoing Cool and Smooth interschool basketball league.
The timely donation of 15 uniforms came from the newly elected Member of Parliament (MP) for the St Mary’s South Constituency, Kelvin ‘Shugy’ Simon.
Simon who was quite recently the guidance counsellor at SMSS before journeying into politics made the donation earlier this week.
“The school played one game so far and they had some printed T-shirts. I was there at the game and I was trying to source the jerseys before that game, but it didn’t happen and it looked very tacky, but I finally managed to get the jerseys and made the donation to the school,” Simon explained.
He said although he is happy to give back to the school, it should not be left only to the educational institution to fund jerseys and other sporting gear.
He believes that government needs to play a bigger role.
“I honestly think that in 2023 schools are not supposed to be seeking sponsors for jerseys. I think that the Ministry of Sports is supposed to shoulder these responsibilities for our young athletes, investing in them, showing them that they are supporting their athletic endeavours. Government on a whole is supposed to be seeking corporate sponsorship for each school team; this is a blueprint that we were trying to establish if we had won the government to seek sponsorship so that year after year, we have companies that are willing to come on board and at the same time, we give them incentives which will encourage them to keep sponsoring.
“That’s something that I think the government needs to look into seriously if we are talking about developing our young athletes through the point that they can make athletics or any sport a career to represent the country and making a better life for them generally,” Simon said.
While Simon agrees that schools can look into carrying out their own fundraising drives and even tap into their alumni pool, for schools like SMSS, which is a fairly young institution, they need a bit more help.
He is adamant that there needs to be a greater investment in the youth as “there is a lot of untapped talent”.
Simon revealed this will be the first of several donations and ways he will be assisting the schools within his constituency of St Mary’s South.
