PARALYMPICS COMMITTEE ON THE CARDS

MBABANE – Eswatini is soon expected to have a Paralympics Committee.

According to the Federation of Organisations of the Disabled in Eswatini (FODSWA) President Sipho Dlamini, people with disabilities were not well or fairly represented in Eswatini sports. “Representation in sports is one of the key things we seek to achieve. This is because the truth is that, accordingly, we must participate in all sporting codes,” he said. Dlamini said there were Paralympics, an Olympic Games version for people with disabilities. He said people with disabilities in the kingdom did not participate in those international games simply because they lacked representation in local sports bodies. “We need to have a Paralympics committee, something which we are still working to put together,” he said. The president said this exercise was interrupted by the spread of COVID-19 as they had already started engaging the Eswatini Sport and Recreation Council (ESRC) before government imposed a lockdown in the fight against the pandemic.

Elections

Dlamini said the recent Eswatini Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (EOCGA) elections should have taken place having already established the Paralympics committee as they needed representation in this organisation. He said in all the sporting codes, they could not be fairly represented if they were not represented in both EOCGA and ESRC. “We need to be represented even in the Eswatini Football Association (EFA) because soccer is played at the Paralympics,” he said. For now, Dlamini said it was difficult to measure or quantify as to what was the approximate percentage of disability participation in local sports due to the fact that there were people who purported to represent people with disabilities in sports yet they were not recognised by FODSWA.

He said investigations were still to be conducted on that part. “Representation is recognition. We need to up our advocacy and sensitisation in these sports bodies,” he said. Dlamini said like he had indicated before, COVID-19 posed a serious challenge for them in as far as dealing with their issues was concerned, making an example of meetings now held virtually, which he said was a bit of a challenge for people with disabilities.

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