Trinidad and To­ba­go is cur­rent­ly be­ing rep­re­sent­ed at Mis­sion Shak­thiSAT, a glob­al space ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tive em­pow­er­ing girls through sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, by Kait­lyn Sa­ha­too.

Sa­ha­too’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­gramme is be­ing sup­port­ed by ANSA McAL, which cov­ered her en­tire air­fare through Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al of Port-of-Spain (SIPOS), the lo­cal part­ner ad­min­is­ter­ing Mis­sion Shak­thiSAT in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

ANSA McAL said the sup­port re­flects the group’s com­mit­ment to in­vest­ing in ed­u­ca­tion, youth de­vel­op­ment and op­por­tu­ni­ties that em­pow­er fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

“Our in­vest­ment in young peo­ple is an in­vest­ment in the ca­pa­bil­i­ties of our coun­try,” said Melanie Richards, Head of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and So­cial In­vest­ment at ANSA McAL.

“Sup­port­ing Kait­lyn’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in Mis­sion Shak­thiSAT re­flects our be­lief in cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties that help young peo­ple de­vel­op their po­ten­tial, gain ac­cess to trans­for­ma­tive learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ences and con­tribute to a stronger fu­ture for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Sa­ha­too, who is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing her stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), de­part­ed for In­dia on Au­gust 18 and is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­gramme from Au­gust 22-31.

Sa­ha­too will work along­side in­dus­try ex­perts to gain first­hand ex­pe­ri­ence in satel­lite en­gi­neer­ing and space tech­nol­o­gy.

A for­mer stu­dent of Par­vati Girls’ Hin­du Col­lege, Sa­ha­too’s jour­ney with Mis­sion Shak­thiSAT be­gan in April 2025, when she joined the Trinidad and To­ba­go co­hort of 111 girls par­tic­i­pat­ing in the ini­tia­tive.

Af­ter com­plet­ing the pro­gramme’s self-paced on­line cur­ricu­lum in STEM fun­da­men­tals, she earned her place as Trinidad and To­ba­go’s del­e­gate through a pan­el in­ter­view that as­sessed lead­er­ship, cre­ativ­i­ty and tech­ni­cal knowl­edge.

Her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pro­gramme in In­dia in­cludes ex­pert-led lec­tures and hands-on ses­sions cov­er­ing the fun­da­men­tals of satel­lite tech­nol­o­gy, in­clud­ing how satel­lites are de­signed, pow­ered and as­sessed be­fore in­te­gra­tion. The ses­sions are in­tend­ed to give par­tic­i­pants di­rect ex­po­sure to the en­gi­neer­ing work be­hind build­ing a satel­lite.

Sa­ha­too is al­so col­lab­o­rat­ing with del­e­gates from 108 coun­tries to build and pre­pare the satel­lite for launch.

Mis­sion Shak­thiSAT, launched glob­al­ly in Jan­u­ary 2025 by Space Kidz In­dia and its founder, Dr Sri­mathy Ke­san, rep­re­sents one of the world’s largest in­ter­na­tion­al satel­lite ed­u­ca­tion ini­tia­tives ded­i­cat­ed to em­pow­er­ing girls through sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, en­gi­neer­ing and in­no­va­tion.

The pro­gramme now in­volves ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12,000 par­tic­i­pants from 108 coun­tries, cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young women to gain prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in space tech­nol­o­gy while col­lab­o­rat­ing across bor­ders.

For Sa­ha­too, the op­por­tu­ni­ty rep­re­sents more than a trip to In­dia. It is a chance to learn along­side young women from around the world, con­tribute to a mis­sion of glob­al sig­nif­i­cance and re­turn with new knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ences to share in Trinidad and To­ba­go.