Selection of Games Chef de Mission and Managers

The list of prospective candidates for the offices of Chef de Mission and Manager of Paralympic teams to regional and international games has some noted sport administrators and personalities who have signalled their intention to become Paralympic ambassadors.

The Jamaica Paralympic Association (JPA), under an initiative dubbed "A Call to Duty", made a call for Chefs de Mission and Managers for its teams to regional and international games for the quadrennial period 2021 to 2024. As a result, the likes of Wavell Hinds of cricket fame, Robert Darby, of the horse racing industry, Leonie Finn, known for her admirable Netball achievements, Wayne Thompson, President par excellence of the St Thomas Football Association, Kaydean Webley, Digicels’ Corporate Marketing Executive guru and Marvalyn Campbell, noted Educator and softball's empress among others have placed their credentials on the table.

President of the JPA, Christopher Samuda, in articulating the policy of the JPA, stated that "the JPA in institutionalising the selection of managerial positions continues to promote a culture of professionalism and meritocracy by bringing persons with customised and bankable skills and competencies as well as innovative thinking and a strong commitment into the mainstream. The pool of talent must be broadened and deepened and the selection process must promote integrity, be transparent and based on merit if the administration of sport is to inspire confidence in stakeholders."

Encouraged by the positive response to the previous call for the quadrennial period 2016 to 2020, the JPA is retracing its steps and will shortly be selecting its management teams for both multi-sport and single-sport games including the 2021 Bogota Para Pan Youth Games in Columbia, the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games in England, the 2022 Kobe World Para Athletics Championships in Japan, the 2023 Santiago Para Pan Games in Chile and the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games in France.

In 2015, the JPA, in fulfilling its mandate of inclusiveness and participatory democracy in sport, instituted a policy making Directors ineligible for selection as Chefs de Missions and Managers of teams to games.

President Samuda sums it up in this way: "The development of sport demands forward thinking and planning, strategic policy making and management, aggressive talent identification, inclusion and capacity building, non-negotiable operational and commercial deliverables and a business unusual mission."

The JPA is the governing local body for para sports and is an accredited member of both the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the apex global body, and the Americas Paralympic Committee (APC), the governing regional authority.

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