RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In a res­olute ef­fort to steer young in­di­vid­u­als away from crim­i­nal gangs, re­tired se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent of the South­ern Di­vi­sion, Wayne Mo­hammed, has joined with stake­hold­ers to host a grass­roots foot­ball tour­na­ment in the crime hotspot of La Ro­maine.

The in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment, pit­ting ten teams from the area against each oth­er, was launched on In­de­pen­dence Day with the over­ar­ch­ing ob­jec­tive of util­is­ing sports as a po­tent tool for crime-re­duc­tion and youth de­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hammed said the in­au­gur­al tour­na­ment’s sig­nif­i­cance ex­tends be­yond the foot­ball field, as it marks the re­vival of com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and youth­ful ca­ma­raderie in Lucky Street.

He said this his­toric ground was once a thriv­ing hub for crick­et and foot­ball, but over time ac­tiv­i­ties waned.

Mo­hammed said the pow­er of sport will pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ence young peo­ple. He stressed the cru­cial role of pro­vid­ing young peo­ple with al­ter­na­tive ac­tiv­i­ties that di­vert their fo­cus from crim­i­nal temp­ta­tions. By nur­tur­ing a mind­set fo­cused on pos­i­tive en­deav­ours, Mo­hammed said it was pos­si­ble to dis­rupt crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

“Sport is an av­enue we can use to help in the re­duc­tion of crime. Once we can take the youths out of the streets and have them oc­cu­py their minds with sports, we will be able to get them out of crime,” Mo­hammed said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the de­cline in crime in San Fer­nan­do, Mo­hammed com­mend­ed the ef­forts of Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Richard Smith in lead­ing crime-re­duc­tion ini­tia­tives. He vowed un­wa­ver­ing sup­port for these ini­tia­tives.

Mo­hammed al­so called for the es­tab­lish­ment of home­work cen­tres in La Ro­maine, un­der­scor­ing ed­u­ca­tion’s piv­otal role in dis­man­tling crime gangs.

“We need a home­work cen­tre in La Ro­maine. Our youths need to be ed­u­cat­ed, en­sur­ing that crime is not what we want. A home­work cen­tre is one of the ways,” he em­pha­sised, ad­vo­cat­ing for a holis­tic, gov­ern­ment-led ap­proach to crime-pre­ven­tion.

Coun­cil­lor for La Ro­maine, Shel­don Lal, echoed Mo­hammed’s sen­ti­ments, em­pha­sis­ing the trans­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial of sports.

He said dur­ing his cam­paign for the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, he en­gaged with many young peo­ple who voiced their de­sire for or­gan­ised sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties in La Ro­maine. This sen­ti­ment gave birth to the foot­ball tour­na­ment.

There were ten reg­is­tered teams di­vid­ed in­to two groups. The tour­na­ment’s fi­nal cul­mi­nat­ed in an ex­hil­a­rat­ing show­down at 6 pm on In­de­pen­dence Day.

Lal said as the na­tion com­mem­o­rat­ed In­de­pen­dence Day, the launch of this youth foot­ball league in La Ro­maine stood as a pow­er­ful tes­ta­ment to the com­mu­ni­ty’s de­ter­mi­na­tion to in­su­late youth from crim­i­nal in­flu­ences.

He said through sports, ed­u­ca­tion, and col­lec­tive ac­tion, La Ro­maine will be­come a safer and more pro­duc­tive com­mu­ni­ty.