Development in Slovakia

As an umbrella organization of the physically disabled, visually impaired, mentally handicapped and deaf athletes, the Slovak Paralympic Committee (SPC) was established six years ago on similar principles and with similar goals to those of the International Paralympic Committee.

Soon we were feeling that our main goals--preparation for and participation of our national team in the Paralympic Games--are not the only, though highly important, goals which must be supported by several others to keep the balance of the whole movement.

Besides our activities promoting elite Paralympians and their achievements and inevitable marketing activities, our main task has been to concentrate on development of sport, especially with children and young people; training and development of our professional staff, administrators, coordinators and coaches; improvement of international and domestic communication; and cooperation with our national bodies as well as other NPCs, EPC and IPC--the area that had been very underestimated due to a lack of experience, appropriate number of staff and lack of sufficient financial sources. 

Having felt the responsibility for future development in our country, we started to compare our possibilities and activities with those of other neighboring countries, those of the Slovak Olympic Committee, Sport for All Association and others, to look for models that could be used in our own terms and financial sources to support them.

In 1997 we began with our first development activity for disabled children and youth within the Sport for All activities in Slovakia with our own, and so far very successful, event. 

In 1998, supported by the Anti-Drug Foundation in Slovakia, SPC prepared a project promoting sport, Paralympic ideas and movement among children and young people with different disabilities named “We are addicted to sport”, designed in several types of activities for different target groups and interests with the same goal--getting the youth to do sport on a regular basis. The structure of the project comprised: 

• Week or weekend sports camps focused on promoting various Paralympic sports (due to great popularity we have continued with this part of the project up to the present)
• Paralympic quiz (promoting Paralympic ideas, movement and sports based on theoretical knowledge) organized every other non-Paralympic year
• Contest in painting with an art exhibition.

Further development activity had its roots in the need to increase our knowledge in organization and administration of disability sport. That was the reason why our NPC representatives initiated the First Development Conference of the European Paralympic Committee “Development Through Sport” (Bratislava, Slovakia, April 7 to 8, 2000) for NPC officials of exclusively Eastern European countries and with the purpose of better orientation, deeper knowledge of the necessary procedures and duties of NPCs, improvement in the field of communication, information flow, mutual cooperation, assistance and development in sport. 

Up to 50 participants including delegates of 13 Eastern European countries (which is more than 50 percent of the member countries) took part in the conference and agreed upon a “declaration” stating the main problems and challenges of sport for the disabled. Slovak political authorities and above all the Ministers of Education, Labor, Social Affairs and Family, and the President of the Slovak Republic supported the conference greatly and showed their active interest. 

This undertaking was certainly the right step forward in the development of our sports movement. The cooperation and mutual understanding were appreciated by every participant and would deserve repeating. Let us hope that the IPC, regional committees, IOSDs and Sports will take similar steps to ensure that there is a good basis for the balanced development of sport of athletes with disabilities.

This was just a brief overview of only the most important activities in our NPC’s short existence but there is still a lot of work before us. To conclude, I would only like to say that if we want to make progress, nobody will do it for us. With or without an assistance--that is the fight we must fight for ourselves and it will bring benefit to all our movement.

Katarina Brandoburova
Secretary-General, Slovak Paralympic Committee