Modelled on the highly successful Olympic Solidarity programme, and chaired by FEI President Princess Haya, FEI Solidarity held its first meeting at federation headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week.

The aim of the Committee, which replaces the FEI Coaching Department, is to organise help for national federations, particularly those with the greatest need.

A three-year plan is to be established – to include application procedures for projects and programmes, evaluation criteria and decision-making processes, as well as communication tools – and two full-time FEI Solidarity officers will be recruited and based in Lausanne.

At last week's meeting, funds were allocated to specific projects and it was agreed all future applications must be forwarded to the FEI Solidarity department through national federations. The deadline for submission of applications for each year will be July 1 of the previous year.

A timeline for London 2012 applications will be set up at the Committee's next meeting, which will take place during the FEI General Assembly in November, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Each of the nine FEI geographical groups is represented on the Solidarity committee, the members of which are: Armagan Ozgorkey from Turkey, Jukka-Pekka Leskinen from Finland, Sergey Maslov from Russia, John Ralston from Jamaica, Dr Jorge Berganza from Mexico Gloria de Cuesta from Ecuador, and Ibrahima Wade from Senegal.

Contact the author of this article at [email protected]