Vin­ode Mam­chan

In this coun­try, we some­times have the prob­lem of not giv­ing cred­it where it is due but to­day I would like to play my part in pay­ing trib­ute to three of my col­leagues at the Trinidad Guardian, for the tremen­dous work they have done in de­vel­op­ing sports and young peo­ple in this coun­try. To­day, thou­sands of young chil­dren will walk around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah in the Walk Against Crime event or­gan­ised by our horse rac­ing cor­re­spon­dent Kelvin Nan­coo. 'Koo' as he is af­fec­tion­ate­ly known has been host­ing this event for the past nine years and has worked tire­less­ly in mak­ing it re­al­i­ty every year. The re­sponse to his event by the young peo­ple of this coun­try has been over­whelm­ing. Koo has been able to at­tract the top sport­ing icons in the coun­try to come out and be a part of it and meet with the young­sters-giv­ing them hope and a hero to look up to. Apart from this, he has re­cent­ly formed the Cougars Ath­let­ics club, where he has tak­en in many youths from across the coun­try and has been a role mod­el and fa­ther fig­ure to them.

Be­ing a jour­nal­ist over the years, he has seen the need to as­sist in the de­vel­op­ment of the young ones and is do­ing his part to as­sist his coun­try. Then we have the sports ed­i­tor him­self, Valenti­no Singh who has helped nu­mer­ous young peo­ple in this coun­try find a path to suc­cess. When 'Koo's' walk ends to­day, hun­dreds of sec­ondary school stu­dents will have a chance to be part of a men­tor­ship pro­gramme en­ti­tled 'See­ing through the I' which will take place at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, in St Ann's from April 2 to 5. Singh has been host­ing this event for over a decade. This year, he has at­tract­ed At­lantic and the Min­istry of Sport as his ti­tle spon­sors but is well sup­port­ed by sev­er­al oth­er com­pa­nies in his ef­forts to make sure the 300 or so chil­dren who at­tend this sym­po­sium are com­fort­able and hap­py. Stu­dents come from as far as Ce­dros, Pa­lo Seco, Point Fortin, La Brea, Guyagua­yare, Rio Claro and Ma­yaro to hear some of the coun­try's icons men­tor and mo­ti­vate them. This year, the event will in­clude Ato Boldon, Ian Bish­op and Sha­ka His­lop while over the years peo­ple such as Bri­an Lara, Daren Gan­ga, George Bovell, Chris­t­ian Homer, Je­hue Gor­don, Ria Ram­nar­ine and Dwayne Bra­vo have fa­cil­i­tat­ed the event.

Singh has gone out of his way to bring a qual­i­ty pre­sen­ta­tion to the young ones with the hope that he can in­spire even just one out of the group to make a pos­i­tive step in their life. The fa­cil­i­ta­tors are all sport­ing icons and pro­fes­sion­als from T&T and the stu­dents en­joy the op­por­tu­ni­ty to just rub shoul­ders with them. It re­al­ly is an ex­pe­ri­ence of a life­time and the stu­dents all leave with a world of wis­dom and a blue­print that they can use to de­vel­op their own lives. And then there is our as­sis­tant ed­i­tor, Kei­th Clement-the bas­ket­ball man. This south­ern­er who came from hum­ble be­gin­nings in Siparia, has made a name for him­self in the field of bas­ket­ball. He has sin­gle hand­ed­ly-or might I say with help from an­oth­er one of my col­leagues Rachael Thomp­son King-brought life back in­to do­mes­tic bas­ket­ball with the re­turn of the very pop­u­lar event, Su­per10 bas­ket­ball. Since he start­ed his Su­per10 re­vival, Clement has faced nu­mer­ous crit­i­cisms but this has not de­terred him, as he has his eyes fixed on what he wants to do for the sport and he is mov­ing ahead. This is one in­stance where his stub­born­ness is work­ing for him, as he is de­ter­mined to take the sport even fur­ther. The same peo­ple who would curse him one day, would re­turn the next to seek his help and I would sit in amaze­ment and look on, as he just turned the oth­er cheek and as­sist­ed the very peo­ple who were work­ing against him. These three gen­tle­men have re­al­ly earned my re­spect in the eight years I have worked with them and I am hop­ing to one day do my part to as­sist as well. As jour­nal­ists, we all know of the prob­lems faced by sport­ing peo­ple and young ones and many of us need to come on board and do our part to as­sist the peo­ple who play sports in or­der to give us our liveli­hood.