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Vaneisha Cadogan takes over as Director National Olympic Academy

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Career educator and sports administrator, Vaneisha Cadogan, has succeeded Dave Farmer as the Director of the National Olympic Academy (NOA) of the Barbados Olympic Association Inc. (BOA). Farmer retired officially at the end of February.Cadogan taught Physical Education (PE) for most of her teaching career, and later became the first Education Officer for PE in the Ministry of Education. She was responsible for the development of the national curriculum for the subject in primary and secondary schools. At the regional level, she served as a member of the CARICOM Technical Committee which developed a Regional Curriculum Framework for Physical Education. Before joining the BOA, she was a Senior Education Officer in the Ministry of Education, heading the Curriculum and Assessment Unit, the Teacher Evaluation Unit and, most recently, the Tertiary Section.

In the area of sport, Cadogan was a netballer and track and field athlete at secondary school and played netball at club level. She has umpired, coached and managed at the regional and international level in netball and served as the President of the Barbados Netball Association. She has also managed track and field teams to the CARIFTA Games, NACAC and Whitsuntide Games.

Among her academic achievements, Cadogan holds a Masters in Sport Organisations Management (MEMOS). She was the recipient of the Alberto Madella Research Award, a distinction bestowed on the most outstanding student in the MEMOS program.

Of her new assignment at the BOA she said— “I am very excited about this opportunity because sports and education have been my life and to be able to marry the two at this point in my career is like a dream come true. It’s definitely a blessing.”


In officially announcing the BOA’s transition to a new Director, President, Sandra Osborne commended Farmer for the good job that he had done over the years and said that she was very pleased to welcome Ms. Cadogan to the administrative team. “Dave has done an excellent job of taking the academy from its infancy and making it into an institution that is recognised for excellence, each year turning out several qualified sports administrators. The academy has also been active in promoting the Olympic values in schools and in the community. Given Ms. Cadogan’s background I am satisfied that she is the right person to build on this foundation and take the Academy even further,” Osborne said.

Cadogan, having started the official handover as director this week, said that Farmer has left a solid platform on which she will build, “the whole purpose of the NOA is to promote Olympism. The NOA’s community outreach has been tremendous, for example, the girls and women in sport activities and the programmes involving the youth from the various communities. In addition, the NOA has been conducting several courses for sports administrators in order to develop their knowledge and skills. This is just some of the evidence of ways in which the Academy has been fulfilling its mandate. What I plan to do is to build on this, learn from what we currently have and implement programmes to ensure that the NOA remains relevant,” Cadogan said.

The NOA is the educational arm of the BOA. The mission of the NOA is to promote the ideals of Olympism and fair play through educational and cultural activities targeting a wide cross- section of the Barbados public.