CAL­DRAC (Cal­i­for­nia Lit­er­ary and Dra­mat­ic Club) Crick­et Club in its 75th year is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Con­tour­Glob­al PLC to pro­mote youth crick­et de­vel­op­ment in the Dow Vil­lage and en­vi­ron­men­tal com­mu­ni­ties of Cal­i­for­nia, Es­per­an­za and Phoenix Park.

The dri­ving prin­ci­ple of the col­lab­o­ra­tion is to ex­pose the youth to the fun­da­men­tals of crick­et as well as com­ple­men­tary life skills which are need­ed both on and off the field.

The club’s Pres­i­dent Mo­keet Az­iz and Chair­man, Anil Ka­mal be­lieve that in­vest­ment in the youth to­day will en­sure the sur­vival of the club in­to the fu­ture.

The club has a strong proven plat­form for its youth de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme as its play­ers have ei­ther rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go and or the West In­dies at se­nior and or youth lev­els and these in­clude:

• Mar­lon Blacks

• Den­nis Ram­per­sad

• Shan­non Gabriel

• Jon- Russ Jages­sar

• An­der­son Phillip

• Mark Deyal

There are 100 reg­is­tered par­tic­i­pants: 68 boys and 32 girls be­tween the age of 6-14.

The ses­sions are cur­rent­ly held on Sat­ur­day morn­ings from 9-12 noon over six weeks.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od the par­tic­i­pants are ex­posed to the fun­da­men­tals of crick­ets with­in a con­text of fun and en­joy­ment.

This con­text is im­por­tant if the fo­cus is to keep in­ter­est­ed high as well as con­ti­nu­ity.

At the end of the train­ing ses­sions, there will be a grad­u­a­tion pro­gramme.

The pro­gramme is fa­cil­i­tat­ed by four coach­es and a physio/train­er:

• Robert Ma­habir—for­mer na­tion­al play­er

• Le­an­dra Ramdeen—cur­rent mem­ber of the na­tion­al se­nior women’s team

• Mar­lon Pe­ters

• Ron­nie Bick­ram­dass

• Shan­ice Ma­habir

(physio/train­er)

The pro­gramme is co­or­di­nat­ed by vol­un­teers-par­ents and oth­er in­ter­est­ed per­son­nel:

• Or­lan­do Smith (par­ent)

• Shali­ni Chan­doo (par­ent)

• Pavi­t­ra Ramdeo

(CAPE Stu­dent)

• Resh­ma Ramdeo

Con­tour­Glob­al PLC through its Com­mu­ni­ty Re­la­tion Of­fi­cer, Ly­dia Fran­co must be ap­plaud­ed for sup­port­ing and pro­mot­ing this pro­gramme as part of its cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter al­most 2 and half years of sport­ing in­ac­tiv­i­ty due to COVID-19.

In ad­di­tion to the crick­et ben­e­fits, this part­ner­ship al­so pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the youth to em­brace an en­vi­ron­ment of so­cial and psy­cho­log­i­cal nor­mal­cy that has been glar­ing­ly ab­sent. It is al­so a mean­ing­ful pre­am­ble for the re­turn to school on Sep­tem­ber 5.

Part­ner­ships of this na­ture will go a long way to­ward the re­birthing com­mu­ni­ty sport in Trinidad and To­ba­go.