KINGSTON, Ja­maica – In a land­mark show of sup­port for Ja­maica’s ris­ing net­ball tal­ent, the Bob & Ri­ta Mar­ley Foun­da­tions have do­nat­ed JM$500,000 to Net­ball Ja­maica to as­sist the Un­der-21 team’s jour­ney to the 2025 Net­ball World Youth Cup in Gibral­tar.

The con­tri­bu­tion, an­nounced by CEO Cedel­la Mar­ley, marks the Foun­da­tion’s first di­rect spon­sor­ship of a net­ball train­ing ini­tia­tive.

It comes at a cru­cial time as the young Reg­gae Girlz in­ten­si­fy their prepa­ra­tions ahead of the Sep­tem­ber 19-28 tour­na­ment.

“Sport has the pow­er to trans­form lives, and these young ath­letes rep­re­sent the strength and fu­ture of Ja­maica,” said Mar­ley. Net­ball builds char­ac­ter, uni­ty, and na­tion­al pride. We’re ho­n­oured to sup­port their mis­sion and help them shine on the world stage.”

The Un­der-21 team, which serves as the pipeline for Ja­maica’s renowned Sun­shine Girls, has a dec­o­rat­ed his­to­ry, in­clud­ing a sil­ver medal in 2000 and bronze in 2013.

With head coach An­nett Da­ley and As­sis­tant Coach Nar­dia Han­son at the helm, the squad is un­der­go­ing rig­or­ous train­ing through lo­cal leagues and a spe­cialised Ju­ly Sum­mer Camp, their fi­nal push be­fore the glob­al show­down.

The Mar­ley Foun­da­tion’s fund­ing will cov­er crit­i­cal ar­eas such as nu­tri­tion­al sup­port, in­jury pre­ven­tion gear, train­ing camp es­sen­tials, and spe­cialised footwear, en­sur­ing the play­ers can fo­cus sole­ly on peak per­for­mance.

This lat­est ini­tia­tive fol­lows the re­cent un­veil­ing of the Foun­da­tions’ JM$4.5 mil­lion mul­ti-pur­pose court at Trench Town Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, re­in­forc­ing their ded­i­ca­tion to youth de­vel­op­ment through sport and in­fra­struc­ture.

CMC