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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Things that Mat­ter

Social, sporting lines must not be blurred

by

20140527

Trinidad and To­ba­go de­sires sport­ing suc­cess as much as it wants a crime free so­ci­ety. There are some peo­ple who see the choice as one or the oth­er but not both. How­ev­er, for the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens -medals, Olympic and World ti­tles mat­ter. They are im­por­tant to T&T. Sport­ing suc­cess lifts the spir­its of the coun­try and re­moves, even if tem­porar­i­ly, the doom and gloom.

There is a crys­tal clear de­mar­ca­tion line be­tween what is a pure sport pro­gramme and a so­cial pro­gramme that seeks to use sport and the val­ues of sport to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence in the lives of at risk chil­dren, youth and young peo­ple.

To use the two in­ter­change­ably is to do sport a dis­ser­vice.

It is es­sen­tial that this dis­tinc­tion be made. It is not sim­ply a mat­ter of eu­phemism, se­man­tics or pub­lic re­la­tion spin.

Us­ing sport and the val­ues of sport as a tool to teach life skills should be en­cour­aged and sup­port­ed.

How­ev­er it must be un­der­stood and ac­knowl­edged that there is a fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ence.

As ex­am­ples, Life­S­port and Hoop for Life are so­cial in­ter­ven­tions us­ing sport and the val­ues of sport. They aren't pure sport pro­grammes that build sport ca­pac­i­ty, in­fra­struc­ture, path­ways and sys­tems.

Ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, the Life­S­port pro­gramme is struc­tured to ad­dress spe­cif­ic life skill needs among at risk com­mu­ni­ties. Each of the 33 ar­eas of the pro­gramme has an es­ti­mat­ed 60 par­tic­i­pants.

Life­S­port seeks to teach life skills to at-risk youth be­tween the ages of 16 and 26 liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing crime and gang re­lat­ed chal­lenges. Each pro­gramme seeks to en­gage at least 60 par­tic­i­pants, who re­ceive a $1,500 month­ly stipend for their suc­cess­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion. Since its in­cep­tion the project has re­ceived ap­prox­i­mate­ly $150 mil­lion in gov­ern­ment fund­ing.

Some years ago this col­umn ex­pressed sup­port for the Tarou­ba con­cept on the ba­sis of what was in­tend­ed. That things have not gone the way it was orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed val­i­dat­ed the say­ing that the road to hell is paved with good in­ten­tions.

Tarou­ba on the sur­face ap­peared to be sport cen­tred. Yet things still went awry.

It should be of con­cern to every­one in­volved in sport in T&T that sport tends to be paint­ed in a neg­a­tive light and those who are con­ve­nient friends of sport take great glee in show­ing up sport as de­fi­cient and even un­de­serv­ing of se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion and sup­port.

This is un­for­tu­nate and deeply trou­bling as the truth of the mat­ter is that so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes have very lit­tle or noth­ing to do with na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and their reg­is­tered clubs, mem­bers and ath­letes.

It is a grave in­jus­tice to sport stake­hold­ers when the dis­tinc­tion is blurred.

So­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes are rel­e­vant and le­git­i­mate and the new nor­mal in many parts of the world. It speaks to the pow­er of sport as a so­cial tool. But let it not be said that so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes are an in­vest­ment in sport and the sport sys­tems or in­fra­struc­ture.

That there are ob­vi­ous syn­er­gies and op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­te­gra­tion can't be de­nied. How­ev­er, the in­tegri­ty of sport and sport val­ues can't be com­pro­mised.

The dis­tinc­tion must be made and ac­knowl­edged.

The sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of or­gan­ised sport as ac­knowl­edged by mem­ber­ship in in­ter­na­tion­al sport fed­er­a­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies can on­ly le­git­i­mate­ly be done through na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies recog­nised and in mem­ber­ship of their re­spec­tive In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tions.

Sport is sport. Blur­ring the lines is a dis­ser­vice to sport. Sport re­quires in­vest­ment as do so­cial in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes.

Make the dis­tinc­tion and ac­knowl­edge the dif­fer­ence.

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the TTOC.

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