Oceania Sports Education Programme (OSEP) Coordinator Sainimili Talatoka departs for Tuvalu tomorrow (Tuesday) to conduct the three day Sport in Country Administrator and Community Coaches and Officials courses in Tuvalu.
Prior to the courses, Talatoka will also be assessing a potential Master Educator that would be the main contact for OSEP in Tuvalu.
Similar programmes are being carried out in Kiribati starting today.
OSEP mentor and World Rugby Regional Training Coordinator Talemo Waqa is leading a team of four which includes OSEP programme assistant Varanisese Logavatu, Joji Liga from the Fiji National Sports Commission and John Susuve from Papua New Guinea Sports Foundation to deliver similar training in Kiribati.
“This group will go and train our OSEP Educators and Master Educators in Kiribati and the next stage is further training for Joji Liga for the partnership as a training provider for Fiji. John Susuve from this training he’ll be the lead person in the PNG Sport Foundation which will be an OSEP Training Provider.
“Out of that we should train 10 OSEP Educators, 2 Master Educators and they should be able to deliver the OSEP courses in country,” said Talatoka.
According to Talatoka, the Master Educators course started today and it involves Liga, Susuve and two from Kiribati.
This will be followed by the OSEP Educator course from the 19th to the 21st and has attracted 10 participants.
The final course in Kiribati is the OSEP Sport in Country Administrators and Community Coaches courses which have attracted 40 participants.
The training in Kiribati is the first of its kind for the country.
OSEP courses have been done in Tuvalu since 2012.
Next month OSEP shifts its attention to Samoa followed by Fiji in October.
Talatoka says the target this year is seven countries and they have already carried out OSEP courses in the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Marshalls.
OSEP is a programme of the Oceania National Olympic Committees (ONOC) based in Fiji’s capital Suva and Hagatna in Guam.