Josanne Lu­cas, the 2009 World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onships bronze medal­list in the 400m hur­dles, gave a mov­ing ad­dress at this year's Women’s Sem­i­nar/Work­shop ti­tled "In­spire­Her" host­ed by the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions of T&T (NAAATT) at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Sports Cen­tre on No­vem­ber 23.

This year’catered for 50 fe­male ath­letes be­tween the ages 12 - 19 as a live au­di­ence with an­oth­er 60 per­sons on­line dur­ing the livestream­ing. NAAATT Women’s Com­mit­tee is chaired by Di­rec­tor and for­mer na­tion­al ath­lete, Cuquie Melville.

The well-at­tend­ed event fo­cused on four ma­jor top­ics de­signed to cre­ate and pro­mote a safe sport­ing en­vi­ron­ment for our fe­male ath­letes by of­fer­ing sup­port and pro­tec­tion against ha­rass­ment and abuse; Pro­mote clean sport by shar­ing in­for­ma­tion that pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ences our fe­male ath­letes’ be­liefs, at­ti­tudes and be­hav­iour to­wards dop­ing in sport; Ed­u­cate and em­pow­er our fe­male ath­letes so that they have a greater ap­pre­ci­a­tion for fi­nan­cial con­cepts, and can make sound and in­formed de­ci­sions by cul­ti­vat­ing fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy as a life skill and; In­spire and em­pow­er fe­male ath­letes to pur­sue ex­cel­lence and achieve their fullest po­ten­tial.

Lu­cas, a for­mer na­tion­al ath­lete, who is cur­rent­ly a teacher and coach in Col­orado, USA re­count­ed her life sto­ry in the sport, on how she over­came doubts and re­peat­ed in­juries along the way and pro­vid­ed the young and at­ten­tive fe­male au­di­ence with prac­ti­cal tips on goal set­ting, time man­age­ment and men­tal re­silience.

Par­tic­i­pants were ex­posed to con­tri­bu­tions on Safe­guard­ing from Maria Thomas, pres­i­dent of T&T Rug­by Union; on An­ti­dop­ing from Michelle Soute, cur­rent as­sis­tant sec­re­tary – NAAATT; and on Fi­nan­cial Lit­er­a­cy from rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Re­pub­lic Bank.

All pre­sen­ta­tions were well re­ceived at the an­nu­al event spon­sored by An­gos­tu­ra Ltd, Bry­den PI, NI­HERST, Ori­on Trav­el Agency, Pharmtech (Caribbean) Ltd, Re­pub­lic Bank, Sco­tia Bank and Ven­ture Cred­it Union.