Lo­cal track and field ath­letes Mallia Po­lo-Chan­dree, De­siree Harp­er and Kadisha Fran­coise are cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the "Em­pow­er­ing Women and Girls through Sports" ex­change ini­tia­tive in the US which start­ed on Mon­day. Po­lo-Chan­dree from Track & Field Acad­e­my and Abi­lene Wild­cats club mates, Harp­er and Fran­coise, are be­ing ac­com­pa­nied by Track & Field Acad­e­my coach Car­ol Car­val­ho. In part­ner­ship with USA Track and Field and the Ore­gon Track Club, the US De­part­ment of State's Bu­reau of Ed­u­ca­tion­al and Cul­tur­al Af­fairs is host­ing 12 girls and four women coach­es from Ba­hamas, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name, and T&T for a track and field ex­change pro­gramme in Wash­ing­ton, DC and Eu­gene, Ore­gon, from June 18-28.

Dur­ing their vis­it par­tic­i­pants will ob­serve US Olympic try-outs and vis­it the head­quar­ters of sports­wear mak­er Nike, as well as par­tic­i­pate in team build­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and sports clin­ics along­side their Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts. The ini­tia­tive aims to in­crease the num­ber of women and girls who par­tic­i­pate in sports world­wide. This ex­change builds on Sec­re­tary of State, Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton's, vi­sion of "smart pow­er," which em­braces the full range of diplo­mat­ic tools to em­pow­er women and girls and fos­ter greater un­der­stand­ing.