Sport - The Zimbabwe National Paralympic Committee is scheduled to hold their general assembly this month to map the way forward for this year. The meeting is pencilled for March 23 in the capital with various stakeholders expected to attend.
ZNPC president, Michael Bulagango said they are going to discuss various issues pertaining to the running of the committee.
'We are looking at our people receiving and considering the president's report on what we did in the previous year. The secretary general's report will be looking at almost all activities that were supposed to be done last year, what we did and what we could not do.
'We will be looking at athlete development and resource mobilisation, marketing and networking. We will look at our audited accounts and the presentation of the budget for this year which needs to be approved,' said Bulagango. Bulagango said they are also going to deal with various policies they have put in place some of, which have to be approved by the board.
'There are policies we have developed as an organisation, some were ratified during a board meeting last year in December but it's a continuous process and between December and now we have developed other policies that need to be approved by the board.
'The policies include athletes protection whether in training grounds or competitions and the inclusion policy whereby we are saying people living with disability should be included in any sport of their choice among other policies,' said Bulagango.
Having failed to win medals at last year's London Paralympic Games where the committee sent two athletes -- sprinter Elliot Mujaji and wheelchair tennis player Nyasha Mharakurwa - Bulagango said their main focus for this year is talent identification as they begin preparations for the next Games in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 2016.
'After London we are doing what we call 'maintaining the momentum' between London and Rio 2016 and we sent people to attend an African Conference organised by the International Paralympic Committee where they were saying that we have to start preparations now so that we do not just make up the numbers like what we did in London.
'It will be a year of talent identification starting at the National Paralympic Games. We are going to start with 40 athletes and we will refine them. We are looking to finally taking five to 10 athletes for the Rio Games.
'Our vision is looking at getting two medals in Rio considering that we did not win anything in 2008 and 2012.
'The national Paralympic Games are the biggest platform but we will not stop there, if provinces hold their tournaments we will always go there and we also have the Danhiko Games, we will also take advantage of that platform to make sure that we do not look at one competition.
We will communicate with our people in all provinces to ensure that all talent is exposed. We are on our road to Rio 2016. Last year there was no talent identification and we were left with no option but to just pick of which I am against that,' said Bulagango.
By Ellina Mhlanga
The Herald/04/03/2013