The T&T Vol­ley­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTVF) is on the hunt for $1.5 mil­lion to as­sist with the host­ing and par­tic­i­pa­tion of its na­tion­al team in no few­er than five re­gion­al in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments.

The T&T is set to host the Caribbean Zon­al Vol­ley­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (CA­ZO­VA) Un­der-23 Cham­pi­ons at the Mal­oney In­door Sports Are­na from Ju­ly 9-14 while the na­tion­als teams are ex­pect­ed to com­pete in the NORCE­CA Se­nior Women's Fi­nal Four in Puer­to Ri­co: Ju­ly 16-21; fol­lowed by the CA­ZO­VA U-17 Cham­pi­onships in Ja­maica: from Ju­ly 28 to Au­gust 4; the Pan Amer­i­can Cup Se­nior Women's Cham­pi­onship from Au­gust 1-11, and the CA­ZO­VA Se­nior Cham­pi­onships from Au­gust 14-24.

Ac­cord­ing to TTVF pres­i­dent, Daymien Stew­art the lo­cal fed­er­a­tion finds it­self in a race against time to get the much-need­ed fi­nan­cial sup­port for the de­mand­ing yet promis­ing in­ter­na­tion­al sea­son.

Stew­art first em­pha­sized the re­silience of the lo­cal ath­letes and al­so high­light­ed the ur­gent need for gov­ern­ment sup­port to har­ness our sport’s full po­ten­tial.

He said, "While the past years have been marred by chal­lenges, on­go­ing po­lit­i­cal pres­sures from the for­mer gov­ern­ment, our ath­letes have con­tin­ued to demon­strate ex­cep­tion­al ded­i­ca­tion and re­silience.

"De­spite the ob­sta­cles, our young ath­letes have achieved re­mark­able mile­stones, in­clud­ing qual­i­fy­ing for the Con­ti­nen­tal World Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fi­ca­tion Tour­na­ments in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic just last week­end, an out­stand­ing feat for our U-21 and U-18 beach vol­ley­ball teams."

Look­ing ahead, Stew­art boast­ed the in­ter­na­tion­al in­door sea­son promis­es an ex­cit­ing line­up of com­pe­ti­tions, "be­gin­ning right here in T&T Ju­ly 9-14, where our U-23 team will com­pete for the Caribbean crown".

How­ev­er, the TTVF boss not­ed that his re­quest for fund­ing has so far fall­en on deaf ears.

He ex­plained, "This fund­ing re­quest to host was sub­mit­ted via the Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) un­der the for­mer Gov­ern­ment, last De­cem­ber as per their re­quire­ment and all our re­quests for tour­na­ments, June to Au­gust were sub­mit­ted at the be­gin­ning of April, and apart from a strange re­lease, made on the morn­ing af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion, no feed­back was giv­en.

With less than a month to the first tour­na­ment here on home soil, Stew­art said he knows it will be a dif­fi­cult time for the new gov­ern­ment, but he is con­fi­dent that they care much more than the pre­vi­ous and can have di­rect and hon­est con­ver­sa­tions, so the best de­ci­sions can be made for the na­tions young peo­ple.

In em­pha­siz­ing the fed­er­a­tion’s com­mit­ment, Stew­art said, "We have man­aged to nav­i­gate these tur­bu­lent times with sig­nif­i­cant sup­port from our par­ents, part­ners, clubs, coach­es and spon­sors.

"How­ev­er, to ful­ly re­alise the po­ten­tial of our ath­letes and pro­vide them with the op­por­tu­ni­ty to com­pete at the high­est lev­els, we es­ti­mate that close to $1.5 mil­lion is need­ed.

"This fund­ing will en­able us to cov­er es­sen­tial ex­pens­es and en­sure our young tal­ents are well-pre­pared for these im­por­tant qual­i­fiers.”

The fed­er­a­tion rec­og­nizes that vol­ley­ball in T&T has great po­ten­tial to con­tribute to a di­ver­si­fied econ­o­my.

"We be­lieve that with strength­ened gov­ern­ment re­la­tion­ship and con­tin­ued pri­vate sec­tor sup­port, our ath­letes can reach new heights, bring pride to our na­tion, and el­e­vate T&T’s stand­ing in the in­ter­na­tion­al vol­ley­ball com­mu­ni­ty."

The lo­cal vol­ley­ball boss added that the TTVF re­mains com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing a vi­brant vol­ley­ball cul­ture and urged part­ners, stake­hold­ers, and gov­ern­ment agen­cies to join in sup­port­ing the na­tion­al ath­letes’ dreams and as­pi­ra­tions.