TATIL and the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (DATT) of­fi­cial­ly kicked off the 2025 edi­tion of their Sixth Form Sum­mer In­tern­ship Pro­gramme with an ori­en­ta­tion on June 28 at DATT’s of­fice in Ch­agua­nas.

Now in its fourth year, the in­tern­ship con­tin­ues to grow in pop­u­lar­i­ty, with near­ly 800 stu­dents ap­ply­ing for just 38 cov­et­ed spots. The sev­en-week pro­gramme, spon­sored by TATIL and TATIL Life, of­fers as­pir­ing health­care pro­fes­sion­als a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to gain hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence and deep­en their un­der­stand­ing of di­a­betes.

Through struc­tured train­ing and field­work, in­terns will be ex­posed to var­i­ous facets of DATT’s op­er­a­tions—in­clud­ing health screen­ings, re­search, fundrais­ing, and ad­min­is­tra­tion—of­fer­ing a com­pre­hen­sive look at the in­ner work­ings of a na­tion­al health-fo­cused NGO.

Among the many learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ences planned, in­terns will vis­it the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) for lab train­ing in blood col­lec­tion, blood typ­ing, uri­nal­y­sis, and mi­croscopy. They will al­so trav­el to To­ba­go for a com­mu­ni­ty out­reach trip, where they will as­sist DATT in host­ing a health fair that pro­vides free screen­ings, nu­tri­tion­al coun­selling, and di­a­betes ed­u­ca­tion to res­i­dents.

“This in­tern­ship equips stu­dents with the tools to in­spire change in their com­mu­ni­ties,” said Stephen Hamel-Smith, mar­ket­ing man­ag­er at TATIL and TATIL Life.

“We’re proud to sup­port this ini­tia­tive and em­pow­er them to take the lead in di­a­betes aware­ness and ed­u­ca­tion.”

The pro­gramme’s im­pact was recog­nised last year when it re­ceived the Mod­el Youth De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme Award (Group) 2024 from the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice. The award high­lights the in­tern­ship’s con­tri­bu­tion to youth de­vel­op­ment and health ad­vo­ca­cy.

This year’s in­terns will al­so spear­head a fundrais­ing project in sup­port of Kristo­pher Mo­hamed, a 19-year-old med­ical stu­dent and vale­dic­to­ri­an of the 2022 in­tern­ship co­hort. Mo­hamed was re­cent­ly di­ag­nosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, and the in­terns will chan­nel their cre­ativ­i­ty and com­pas­sion to raise funds for his treat­ment.

At the con­clu­sion of the pro­gramme, in­terns will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to join the DATT Youth Ad­vo­ca­cy Arm, con­tin­u­ing their jour­ney as peer ed­u­ca­tors and am­bas­sadors for di­a­betes aware­ness.

TATIL and DATT ex­tend their con­grat­u­la­tions to this year’s co­hort.

Get up­dates on their in­tern­ship jour­ney by fol­low­ing DATT, TATIL and TATIL Life on Face­book and In­sta­gram.