The Youth Trans­for­ma­tion and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (YTRC) Gym­na­si­um will come alive once again to­day as the R³ 3x3 In­vi­ta­tion­al Tour­na­ment re­turns with new fea­tures and high­er stakes.

This year’s edi­tion in­tro­duces a Women’s Un­der-21 Di­vi­sion, along­side the re­turn­ing Men’s U-21 Di­vi­sion, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant step in ex­pand­ing the tour­na­ment’s in­clu­siv­i­ty and im­pact.

Build­ing on its core val­ues of "Rise, Re­bound, Re­form", this year's edi­tion aims to raise the com­pet­i­tive bar, strength­en com­mu­ni­ty ties, and so­lid­i­fy its po­si­tion as a pre­mier event on the lo­cal 3x3 bas­ket­ball cal­en­dar.

Last year in the in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion, which be­gan on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2024, eight teams bat­tled through a fast-paced tour­na­ment that de­liv­ered every­thing fans love about 3x3 bas­ket­ball — speed, in­ten­si­ty, and dra­ma. In the end, Spar­tans TT claimed the ti­tle with a thrilling win over New Chap­ter Acad­e­my (NCA) Love, while Va­len­cia Heat se­cured third place. Zachary Julien of Spar­tans TT earned MVP ho­n­ours for his dom­i­nant per­for­mance.

That land­mark event was more than just a com­pe­ti­tion — it was a state­ment about the role of sport in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. By en­gag­ing civil­ian teams along­side YTRC res­i­dents, the tour­na­ment fos­tered pos­i­tive in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the fa­cil­i­ty and the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

Since in­tro­duc­ing 3x3 bas­ket­ball to YTRC in May 2024, the sport has be­come a sta­ple of res­i­dent ac­tiv­i­ties. To date, 22 FI­BA-ap­proved events have been staged at the fa­cil­i­ty, of­fer­ing not just games, but lessons in dis­ci­pline, team­work, and re­silience.

The im­pact has gone be­yond YTRC’s walls. The con­sis­ten­cy of these com­pe­ti­tions helped sus­tain the lo­cal bas­ket­ball ecosys­tem and played a key role in T&T’s men’s U-23 team qual­i­fy­ing for the 2025 Ju­nior Pan Amer­i­can Games in Asun­ción, Paraguay.

With mo­men­tum build­ing, the Prison Ser­vice is tak­ing its vi­sion fur­ther. Plans are un­der­way to use the dy­nam­ic 3x3 for­mat to reignite bas­ket­ball among of­fi­cers, cre­at­ing new av­enues for com­pe­ti­tion, fit­ness, and ca­ma­raderie.

“This isn’t just about in­ter­nal en­gage­ment,” said As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Ri­car­do Dass. “We see the for­mat as the ide­al cat­a­lyst to re­build our bas­ket­ball ac­tiv­i­ties as a com­pet­i­tive force. Our sights are set on mov­ing from strength to strength to­ward re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the Ser­vice.”