The Ryu Dan Em­pow­er­ment Foun­da­tion has up­grad­ed its Sports Plus so­cial pro­gramme as part of its on­go­ing mis­sion to up­lift youth in En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas. Launched on the May 8, the project was made pos­si­ble through the Ex­tra­or­di­nary Projects Im­pact­ing Com­mu­ni­ties (EPIC) grant pro­gramme, fund­ed by the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion in part­ner­ship with Shell Trinidad and To­ba­go (Shell).

With a $150,000 EPIC Grant, the Ryu Dan Foun­da­tion launched ‘Op­er­a­tion Kick­Up’ to ex­pand op­por­tu­ni­ties for youth and women in its com­mu­ni­ty by: (i) Es­tab­lish­ing a ful­ly-equipped com­put­er lab to sup­port dig­i­tal learn­ing; (ii) Pur­chas­ing new sewing ma­chines and tools for its ‘Sup­port Ed­u­cate and Em­pow­er Women’ (SEEW) pro­gramme, and (iii) Pur­chas­ing new sports equip­ment and gear to en­hance train­ing at the Cen­tre. All part of Ryu Dan’s flag­ship Sports Plus pro­gramme, the NGO us­es a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary ap­proach that blends sports and cul­tur­al dis­ci­plines with aca­d­e­m­ic and vo­ca­tion­al train­ing to help de­vel­op well-round­ed in­di­vid­u­als.

Speak­ing at the launch event, Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion Di­rec­tor Bibi Mo­hamed Singh shared that "Be­ing part of sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives is ex­act­ly what EPIC is about. Our in­vest­ment goes be­yond the com­put­ers and tan­gi­ble items – it’s about en­rich­ing lives and help­ing par­tic­i­pants change their life tra­jec­to­ry."

In ad­di­tion, the part­ner­ship in­cludes one year of free Dig­i­cel Plus ser­vice and ac­cess to the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion’s Safer In­ter­net Train­ing (SIT) cam­paign, which equips par­tic­i­pants with vi­tal cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty skills and tools for nav­i­gat­ing the dig­i­tal world re­spon­si­bly.