Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Phillip Watts, wel­comed His Ex­cel­len­cy Jon Dean, British High Com­mis­sion­er to Trinidad and To­ba­go, for a cour­tesy call on Wednes­day aimed at strength­en­ing bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion in the fields of sport, youth de­vel­op­ment, and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­change.

The meet­ing fea­tured dis­cus­sions on shared pri­or­i­ties, in­clud­ing in­clu­siv­i­ty, strate­gic part­ner­ships, and en­hanced mo­bil­i­ty for ath­letes. A key top­ic on the agen­da was the visa ap­pli­ca­tion process, with spe­cif­ic fo­cus on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­pe­dit­ed visas for lo­cal ath­letes trav­el­ling to the Unit­ed King­dom for com­pe­ti­tions or train­ing.

Min­is­ter Watts and High Com­mis­sion­er Dean al­so ad­dressed ways to sup­port dif­fer­ent­ly-abled ath­letes through col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­grammes that pro­mote eq­ui­ty and ac­ces­si­ble op­por­tu­ni­ties in sport. Both sides re­it­er­at­ed their com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing an in­clu­sive sport­ing en­vi­ron­ment for all.

The dis­cus­sion ex­tend­ed to youth en­gage­ment in rur­al and high-risk com­mu­ni­ties, em­pha­sis­ing sport’s trans­for­ma­tive role in so­cial de­vel­op­ment. The po­ten­tial of To­ba­go as a hub for beach sports was high­light­ed, with both par­ties recog­nis­ing the is­land’s ap­peal for host­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sport­ing events.

High Com­mis­sion­er Dean not­ed the avail­abil­i­ty of post­grad­u­ate schol­ar­ships for Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly in fields like sport man­age­ment and de­vel­op­ment. He al­so ex­pressed the UK’s in­ter­est in sup­port­ing a rug­by event lo­cal­ly and ex­pand­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion in foot­ball and crick­et—sports that are deeply root­ed in both na­tions’ cul­tures.

Min­is­ter Watts pro­posed ex­plor­ing in­tern­ship and work place­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in the UK for grad­u­ates of lo­cal sport pro­grammes. This ini­tia­tive aims to pro­vide young pro­fes­sion­als with in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure and hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence in their fields.

The meet­ing con­clud­ed with a mu­tu­al com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing open di­a­logue and im­ple­ment­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive ini­tia­tives that ben­e­fit youth and sport de­vel­op­ment across both na­tions. The cour­tesy call marks an­oth­er step in deep­en­ing the long-stand­ing part­ner­ship be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed King­dom.