As this coun­try grap­ples with one of the high­est brain drain rates in the re­gion, the Trin­ba­go Di­as­po­ra Out­reach Net­work (TDON) is tak­ing steps to re­con­nect na­tion­als abroad with the event, Home­com­ing 2025.

The three-day gath­er­ing, to be held from Oc­to­ber 17–19, will fo­cus on giv­ing back through the ‘Acts of Kind­ness Day,’ ho­n­our­ing 12 na­tion­als abroad at the Di­as­po­ra Pa­tri­ots Awards and Gala, and cel­e­brat­ing this coun­try’s cul­ture at the Di­vali Na­gar.

Na­tion­als liv­ing abroad, along with cit­i­zens at home, are be­ing en­cour­aged to re­con­nect with their home­land and chan­nel their skills, re­sources, and in­vest­ments in­to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing at the me­dia launch at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Port-of-Spain on Mon­day, deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary at the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Ki­va Clarke, com­mend­ed TDON for its role in bridg­ing T&T with its world­wide di­as­po­ra com­mu­ni­ty.

Clarke ref­er­enced Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s speech at the Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions in New York, high­light­ing this coun­try’s sig­nif­i­cant brain drain, which is said to be the high­est in the re­gion.

“As the Prime Min­is­ter ob­served, we have lost out on hun­dreds of mil­lions of po­ten­tial re­mit­tances and in­vest­ments due to the mi­gra­tion of skilled cit­i­zens and lim­it­ed en­gage­ment with their de­scen­dants,” Clarke said.

“We are hap­py to be at the launch of the three-day event, which un­der­scores the im­por­tance we at­tach to your voic­es and your role in shap­ing our na­tion's pres­ence on the glob­al stage.”

TDON founder Dr An­dre Phillips, who has con­duct­ed ex­ten­sive re­search on di­as­po­ra en­gage­ment, said his or­gan­i­sa­tion sup­ports the re­cent­ly passed leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing peo­ple to ac­quire T&T cit­i­zen­ship through their grand­par­ents. He claimed the lo­cal sports sec­tor, par­tic­u­lar­ly in win­ter-re­lat­ed games, will ben­e­fit.

“The fact that T&T has had on­ly a spo­radic in­volve­ment in the Win­ter Olympics, this grand­fa­ther leg­is­la­tion will al­low us to tap in­to oth­er per­sons who pur­sue that sport, or the sports that are un­der the Win­ter Olympics, and there­fore T&T could cer­tain­ly be punch­ing above its weight, a lit­tle bit like what Ja­maica has done,” Phillips said.

Through his stud­ies, Phillips al­so sug­gest­ed that more con­sulates be set up in the Unit­ed States, giv­en the num­ber of na­tion­als liv­ing through­out North Amer­i­ca.

“We have come to the point in time where, based on the re­search and the prac­tice, we need to now have a new con­sulate in the Amer­i­can Mid­west. And per­haps Texas…we’ve got to look at these things.”

He added that TDON hopes to ex­pand ties with T&T na­tion­als in the Mid­dle East and oth­er Eu­ro­pean coun­tries in the near fu­ture.

Among the 12 awardees is the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion UK (TTA-UK), the world’s longest-run­ning di­as­po­ra group, recog­nised for its sta­bil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty, ex­em­pli­fied by prop­er­ty own­er­ship in Lon­don and the strong com­mu­ni­ty it has fos­tered abroad.