Grad­u­ates were the cen­ter of at­ten­tion as the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee (TTOC), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs (MSYA), host­ed a cer­tifi­cate dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day (Jan­u­ary 31).

The co­hort in­clud­ed 58 grad­u­ates from the Sport Ad­min­is­tra­tion (Lev­el 1) course and 57 grad­u­ates from the Com­mu­ni­ty Coach­ing pro­gramme, all of whom suc­cess­ful­ly met the re­quire­ments of the 2025 Ca­pac­i­ty Build­ing Cours­es.

The event, held at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um’s VIP Room in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, cel­e­brat­ed the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of these pro­grams, which are strate­gi­cal­ly de­signed to strength­en sport ad­min­is­tra­tion and gov­er­nance across the na­tion­al sport­ing land­scape.

​This cer­e­mo­ny marked a key mile­stone in the TTOC/MSYA part­ner­ship, which pri­ori­tis­es struc­tured ed­u­ca­tion and prac­ti­cal train­ing for ad­min­is­tra­tors, of­fi­cials, coach­es, and vol­un­teers. Dur­ing the open­ing, An­nette Knott, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the TTOC, un­der­scored the ne­ces­si­ty of con­tin­u­ous pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment for build­ing sus­tain­able sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions.

​Gabre Mc Tair, Di­rec­tor of Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion and Sport at the MSYA, al­so reaf­firmed the Min­istry’s com­mit­ment to ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and praised the grad­u­ates for their ded­i­ca­tion to ad­vanc­ing sport at all lev­els. The pro­ceed­ings were fur­ther en­hanced by a cul­tur­al per­for­mance from panist Em­manuel Joseph, adding a cel­e­bra­to­ry lo­cal flair to the oc­ca­sion.

​The 2025 pro­gramme fo­cused specif­i­cal­ly on en­hanc­ing lead­er­ship and op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness with­in Na­tion­al Sport­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tions. Cather­ine Forde, lead fa­cil­i­ta­tor of the Sport Ad­min­is­tra­tion Course, de­liv­ered the clos­ing re­marks, en­cour­ag­ing the new alum­ni to ap­ply their new­found knowl­edge to cre­ate a tan­gi­ble im­pact on the wider sport­ing ecosys­tem.

​Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) of­fi­cer for Sport De­vel­op­ment, Mar­lon Salden­ha, who al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the course, de­scribed the ex­pe­ri­ence as in­valu­able.

​“Be­ing part of the Ad­vanced Sport Man­age­ment Course was a priv­i­lege—not on­ly be­cause of the wealth of knowl­edge shared by the out­stand­ing fa­cil­i­ta­tors across each mod­ule, but al­so be­cause of the mean­ing­ful in­ter­ac­tions among mem­bers of the var­i­ous Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies (NGB),” Salden­ha said.

​He added that the ca­ma­raderie ex­pe­ri­enced through­out the pro­gram was "next lev­el," not­ing that the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn from and share ex­pe­ri­ences across a wide range of sports through di­rect en­gage­ment was tru­ly un­matched.

​Salden­ha fur­ther com­mend­ed the or­gan­is­ers, stat­ing, “I ap­plaud the TTOC and its part­ner­ship with the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs for their con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to sport de­vel­op­ment in T&T. I would high­ly rec­om­mend this course to NGB ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and to any­one with an in­ter­est in Sport Man­age­ment.”

​In a re­lease, the TTOC con­grat­u­lat­ed all the grad­u­ates on their achieve­ment, not­ing that the or­gan­i­sa­tion looks for­ward to their con­tin­ued con­tri­bu­tions to fos­ter­ing ex­cel­lence and sus­tain­able growth with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go sport.