Sport 4 Life (S4L) Cochrane is looking to expand on its goal of getting the community’s youth to become ‘physically literate.’
S4L’s passionate board chair, Lea Norris, provided council members with the lowdown on what her organization was planning in the coming year, and how they hope to get kids up, active and living a healthy lifestyle.
“We’re a volunteer group and want to establish a role and a trust,” said Norris of their efforts in the community. “It’s not an easy task.”
Inspired by the Canadian Sport for Life/Long Term Athlete Development model, S4L Cochrane aims to both assist local sport and recreation groups, as well as community members at large, specifically youth, by striving to offer opportunities for them to get involved in the right activities at the right time and develop some athletic prowess.
Norris underscored a statistic revealing that a mere nine per cent of youth in Canada are provided with an adequate amount of time to be active, and that S4L was motivated by what was identified as similar deficiencies in the quality of sport in Cochrane.
“Community is essential,” explained Norris, adding that there is also a need to get Cochrane schools on board with their effort.
One of the main goals of S4L is to get those youth who typically don’t get involved in sport to throw their hat into the ring.
The focus is not to funnel children into one particular sport, but to provide a range of opportunities, with a healthy lifestyle being the central focus.
One of the ways Norris said they plan on achieving this is to work toward developing a resource centre for the various sports and differing levels of sport. S4L hopes to assist those with disabilities participate as well.
Norris said the critical age to develop one’s athletic skills expires around the age of 13 and that it was vital to ‘look at what is best for the child.’
Council members applauded Norris and S4L for their efforts and for what they are planning for the future.
