ODI Off to a Great Start

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) representative, Heather Cameron, just completed an African tour where she visited and worked with the NPCs in Tanzania, Burundi, Zambia and Namibia. During each visit Heather conducted workshops with key representatives of the NPCs to identify their current strengths, capability and capacity, challenges for the next three to four years and formulated that into a plan of action referred to as the Organizational Development Plan (ODP). A significant number of women and athletes participated in the workshops and other representatives from the government, local sport clubs, and local non-governmental organizations.

The tour ended at ‘The Next Step Conference’ in Windhoek, Namibia, hosted by ODI partner UK Sport. This conference gave representatives from the NPCs of Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia and Rwanda the opportunity to share their experiences, learn from others doing similar work in the region and network with potential partners. Presentations were given by Lango Sinkamba, President of the NPC of Zambia and Heather Cameron on behalf of the IPC. IPC President Sir Philip Craven gave a keynote address and signed extensions to partnership agreements with UK Sport and Commonwealth Games Canada that give a great boost to the ODI over the next couple of years.

The call for NPCs to apply to enter the ODI in 2008 will be available on the IPC website prior to the IPC 2007 General Assembly in November 2007. In addition, participants of the IPC General Assembly are invited to attend a workshop on the ODI during the IPC Conference for member organizations in Seoul, Korea.