Paralympic Committee reaches out to little people The Namibian Paralympic Committee has started inviting people living with dwarfism to get involved in sport following a directive from deputy minister Agnes Tjongarero last week. NPC president Johannes Lwitayi told Namibian Sun that although the committee has not yet started writing letters to governors and councillors as directed, they have started approaching dwarves in their areas.
He said one man at Rundu has expressed interest in shot-put, javelin and powerlifting. Chiumba Izaakhiel (24) has started training with Lwitayi.
“We have started spotting them and talking to them, but I have also communicated to the councillor in Kavango West, he is arranging to call all the people living with disabilities to a meeting so that I can speak to them about sports and then register them,” he said.
Lwitayi said after the Disability Sport Namibia (DSN) recognition event last week, he directed all the board members to contact people with disabilities in their regions who are interested in sport and get them registered.
“I asked all the board members to go and get people with disabilities in their regions registered, including dwarves, so each one has to give feedback from their regions to our head office,” he said.
He said the deputy minister also wants to see more wheelchair racers, swimmers and wheelchair basketball players.
“We do not have enough wheelchairs but we have two in the office and have given some to the regions, so we are now trying to identify other athletes who are interested in wheelchair racing to join as we aim to have a team of at least three to four athletes,” he said.
He added that three aspiring swimmers in Rundu will soon join the team.
“I have about three of them here in Rundu that I will take to the river to test them how they can swim then I will send the names to Windhoek and get a date when they can also be tested there,” he stated.
Lwitayi further mentioned that a group of wheelchair basketball players will be sent to South Africa for classification soon.
Last week Tjongarero said, “When I was at the Paralympic Games, I saw a lot of these ''Kamatis'' (dwarves) and I asked myself, we have so many of them at home so how about we also get them into sports.
“Now I want us to write to all the governors and councillors and ask them how many Kamatis are in their regions and how many of them are interested in sports and let us get them involved,” she said.
KAINO NGHITONGO