The Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goal (SDG) 5 fo­cus­es on achiev­ing gen­der equal­i­ty and em­pow­er­ment for all women and girls. Ac­cord­ing to the goal, “sport can be a pow­er­ful plat­form for ad­vo­ca­cy and aware­ness-rais­ing for gen­der equal­i­ty. It can con­tribute to abol­ish­ing all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion against women and girls; hu­man rights-based rules of a sport can help to re­place cul­tur­al­ly dis­crim­i­na­tive norms that ex­clude women and girls from sports.”

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Women Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion (TTWCA) through the 3rd edi­tion of the Courts Grand­slam T20 (De­cem­ber 3rd -13th) is fos­ter­ing this all-im­por­tant SDG. This fran­chise event con­tin­ues to pro­vide an im­por­tant plat­form for the lo­cal and re­gion­al fe­male to con­tin­ue demon­strat­ing their shills. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the fran­chise event is in line with oth­er glob­al fran­chise com­pe­ti­tions such as the Women's Big Bash League in Aus­tralia; the Kia Su­per League in Eng­land and the IPL ex­hi­bi­tion match­es and the soon be launched ECB 100 for women in 2020.

Each year the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op the lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism re­quired in­creas­es as the fran­chise sys­tem is be­com­ing more com­pet­i­tive not on­ly with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the top se­nior West In­dies play­ers such as Ste­fanie Tay­lor (de­but year), Hay­ley Matthews and De­an­dra but al­so among the top lo­cal play­ers.

In every fran­chise event around the world, sup­port from the cor­po­rate world is tan­ta­mount to­ward its ex­is­tence. As such ti­tle spon­sors Courts Trinidad must be ap­plaud­ed for its con­tin­ued sup­port of the event by in­creas­ing its spon­sor­ship to TT$100,000.00. This is very im­pres­sive giv­en the cur­rent down­turn in the econ­o­my and the his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges women sports ex­pe­ri­ence in at­tract­ing spon­sor­ship com­pare to men's events.

The fran­chise hold­ers- Tri­dent Sports (Bar­ba­dos), LCB Con­trac­tors and UDE­COTT have been on board since the fran­chise in­cep­tion and con­tin­ue to be ful­ly sup­port­ive en­sur­ing that play­ers are giv­en the best op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their skills.

The Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs must al­so be con­grat­u­lat­ed for sup­port­ing the event as it is in keep­ing with its 'Reign in Pink' pro­gramme to get more girls and women phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive and en­gag­ing in every as­pect of sports.

TTWCA has been lead­ing the de­vel­op­ment of women's crick­et in the re­gion and this fran­chise event is yet an­oth­er ex­am­ple. This event is the on­ly of its kind in the re­gion to ex­tend that Crick­et West In­dies has ful­ly en­dorsed it. CWI has en­sured that all the top re­gion­al play­ers are avail­able to en­sure that the crick­et is of a very com­pet­i­tive lev­el as well as to en­sure that spon­sors and fans get val­ue for their re­spec­tive spon­sor­ship and sup­port.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, as the elim­i­na­tor and fi­nal will be streamed to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty the reach of the event can re­sult in greater for­eign in­volve­ment in both play­ers and spon­sor­ship in sub­se­quent edi­tions.

This year's event promis­es to be ul­tra-com­pet­i­tive as the top re­gion­al play­ers will be seek­ing to fine-tune their per­for­mance in prepa­ra­tion for the up­com­ing T20 World Cup in Feb­ru­ary-March 2020 in Aus­tralia. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the event is a fore­run­ner to the start of the lo­cal crick­et sea­son which bowls off on Jan­u­ary 18th/19 with the T10 in both the pre­mier­ship and cham­pi­onship di­vi­sions.

The pro­mo­tion of gen­der equal­i­ty in sport is well un­der­way glob­al­ly. It may not be hap­pen­ing as fast and wide­spread as is re­quired but the changes thus far are op­ti­misti­cal­ly pro­gres­sive. The TTWCA through its plan­ning and or­gan­i­sa­tion and with the sup­port of var­i­ous stake­hold­ers is grad­u­al­ly plant­i­ng its seed of change in the sport­ing land­scape in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is hoped that the gen­der winds of change will con­tribute to re­or­gan­is­ing sport, in gen­er­al, lev­el­ling the play­ing field for ath­letes as well as in oth­er ar­eas such as coach­ing, sup­port staff, com­men­tary and lead­er­ship.

"I don't feel it is nec­es­sary to know ex­act­ly what I am. The main in­ter­est in life and work is to be­come some­one else that you were not in the be­gin­ning." Michel Fou­cault