In a move that is re­shap­ing the re­gion­al sports land­scape, 18 young Trinida­di­ans have suc­cess­ful­ly trad­ed their text­books for head­sets and cam­eras, en­ter­ing the pro­fes­sion­al me­dia in­dus­try through a high-im­pact part­ner­ship be­tween KFC T&T and Rodeo Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

​The ini­tia­tive, which be­gan as a grass­roots com­men­tary project in 2024, has rapid­ly scaled in­to a so­phis­ti­cat­ed ca­reer pipeline. By the end of 2025, the pro­gramme ex­pand­ed its cur­ricu­lum to in­clude tech­ni­cal “be­hind-the-scenes” roles, such as broad­cast pro­duc­tion and pro­fes­sion­al cin­e­matog­ra­phy.

​The 2025 co­hort has al­ready hit the ground run­ning, with 12 new spe­cial­ists join­ing the orig­i­nal grad­u­ates in ac­tive field as­sign­ments. These re­cruits, in­clud­ing Sachin Mo­hammed, Eme­lio For­tune, Sachin Balkissoon, Tan­vir Dhan­paul, Aidan Mam­chan, Dim­itri Ramd­hanie, Aidan Ram­per­sads­ingh, Shan­non Ram­roop, Khadim Al­leyne, Vi­noo Koon­jan, Vesh­wesh Pat­tnaik and Matthew Ra­jaram, are cur­rent­ly trav­el­ling through­out the Caribbean and North Amer­i­ca, pro­vid­ing cov­er­age for ma­jor sport­ing events.

​“We have un­leashed an­oth­er 12 young me­dia pro­fes­sion­als in­to the in­dus­try and this is some­thing I am ex­treme­ly proud of,” said Vin­ode Mam­chan, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Rodeo Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Crick­et360. "They were trained across every as­pect of broad­cast me­dia and are al­ready gain­ing valu­able ex­po­sure, trav­el­ling through­out the Caribbean and in­to North Amer­i­ca. We are grate­ful to KFC for their vi­sion — not on­ly in giv­ing back, but in ac­tive­ly guid­ing the process through con­sis­tent di­a­logue and part­ner­ship.”

​The pro­gramme’s growth re­flects a steady up­ward tra­jec­to­ry in youth de­vel­op­ment. Since its launch in 2024, which ini­tial­ly placed eight in­di­vid­u­als in play-by-play com­men­tary and sports jour­nal­ism roles, the ini­tia­tive has near­ly dou­bled its im­pact. The 2025 ex­pan­sion added 12 more pro­fes­sion­als fo­cused on tech­ni­cal train­ing, specif­i­cal­ly cam­era work and broad­cast pro­duc­tion, bring­ing the cu­mu­la­tive to­tal of in­dus­try place­ments to 18. As the cal­en­dar turns to­ward 2026, the part­ner­ship is prepar­ing for its next phase, which aims to fur­ther in­te­grate ad­vanced dig­i­tal me­dia train­ing and open new re­cruit­ment win­dows for the next gen­er­a­tion of tal­ent.

​While many cor­po­rate en­ti­ties lim­it their in­volve­ment to fi­nan­cial do­na­tions, KFC T&T has adopt­ed a “hands-on” ap­proach to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. Ac­cord­ing to lead­er­ship at Pres­tige Hold­ings Lim­it­ed, the goal is to bridge the gap be­tween school and the pro­fes­sion­al work­force.

​Roger Ramb­harose, vice pres­i­dent of KFC T&T, not­ed that the pro­gramme’s suc­cess lies in its abil­i­ty to cre­ate gen­uine ca­reer path­ways.

​“It cre­ates re­al path­ways for young peo­ple leav­ing school to pur­sue ca­reers they are pas­sion­ate about. See­ing them suc­ceed gives us tremen­dous sat­is­fac­tion,” Ramb­harose stat­ed.

​As the pro­gramme pre­pares for its 2026 cy­cle, it stands as a blue­print for how pri­vate-sec­tor part­ner­ships can solve youth un­em­ploy­ment by di­rect­ly align­ing train­ing with in­dus­try de­mand.