Phillip Watts, Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, host­ed a cour­tesy call on Wednes­day with Jon Dean, British High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, to ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties for en­hanced col­lab­o­ra­tion in sport, youth de­vel­op­ment, and in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ment.

The meet­ing pro­vid­ed a plat­form for ro­bust dis­cus­sion on key ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est, with an em­pha­sis on in­clu­siv­i­ty, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and strate­gic part­ner­ships. High on the agen­da was the visa ap­pli­ca­tion process, with spe­cif­ic at­ten­tion to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­pe­dit­ed visas for ath­letes, to sup­port smoother trav­el for lo­cal sportsper­sons com­pet­ing or train­ing in the Unit­ed King­dom.

Min­is­ter Watts and High Com­mis­sion­er Dean al­so ex­plored joint ini­tia­tives for dif­fer­ent­ly-abled ath­letes, reaf­firm­ing a shared com­mit­ment to eq­ui­ty in sports and the em­pow­er­ment of all cit­i­zens through ac­ces­si­ble pro­gram­ming.

Di­a­logue al­so turned to the po­ten­tial for sports de­vel­op­ment in rur­al and high-risk ar­eas, in­tend­ing to har­ness sport as a tool for pos­i­tive youth en­gage­ment and so­cial trans­for­ma­tion. The unique po­ten­tial of beach sports in To­ba­go was al­so high­light­ed, with both par­ties ac­knowl­edg­ing the is­land’s nat­ur­al ap­peal for re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al events.

Dean un­der­scored the avail­abil­i­ty of post­grad­u­ate schol­ar­ships, avail­able to el­i­gi­ble cit­i­zens to ap­ply and build ex­per­tise in var­i­ous dis­ci­plines, in­clud­ing sport man­age­ment and de­vel­op­ment.

In ad­di­tion, the High Com­mis­sion ex­pressed keen in­ter­est in sup­port­ing a rug­by event in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as ex­pand­ing part­ner­ships in foot­ball and crick­et, two cor­ner­stone sports with rich lega­cies shared by both na­tions.

Min­is­ter Watts raised the prospect of in­tern­ship and work pro­gramme op­por­tu­ni­ties in the UK for grad­u­ates of lo­cal sports pro­grammes, aimed at en­hanc­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and pro­mot­ing cross-cul­tur­al ex­change.

The meet­ing con­clud­ed with a reaf­fir­ma­tion of both na­tions' com­mit­ment to on­go­ing di­a­logue and tan­gi­ble col­lab­o­ra­tion to ad­vance sport, ed­u­ca­tion, and youth em­pow­er­ment.