The Gov­ern­ment of T&T con­tin­ues to recog­nise and sup­port ath­letes, sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives to­wards achiev­ing sport­ing and com­mu­ni­ty ex­cel­lence.

Last Thurs­day, a com­bi­na­tion of eight Na­tion­al Sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions, sev­en Elite Ath­letes, 13 Sports In­di­vid­u­als, and 14 com­mu­ni­ty groups were pre­sent­ed with grant fund­ing at the Mt Hope/Mt Lam­bert Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre by the Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Sham­fa Cud­joe.

A to­tal of 42 re­cip­i­ents re­ceived fund­ing via the Min­istry’s Elite Ath­lete As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAAP), the Sports Grant for Or­gan­i­sa­tions and In­di­vid­u­als, and the Com­mu­ni­ty Ac­tion for Re­vival and Em­pow­er­ment (CARE) grant to the tune of TT$ 3,022,301.00.

The list of Elite and in­di­vid­ual ath­letes who re­ceived in­clud­ed Ak­il Camp­bell, Dwight St Hillaire, Er­ic Har­ri­son Jr, Jerod El­cock, Keshorn Wal­cott, Kwe­si Browne, Michelle-Lee Ahye, And­wuelle Wright, De­vante Lau­rence, Isa­iah Row­ley, Ebolum Nwoko­lo, Faith Alexan­der,   Jef­frey Hold­er, Joel Mait­land-Wil­son, Joshua St Clair, Princess Su­san­nah Joe­field, Rhod­ney Allen, Sha­keem Mc Kay, Suzan Gar­cia, and Var­ma Ram­baran.

The Min­is­ter said 12 mil­lion had been dis­trib­uted thus far this fis­cal year.

She said the sup­port giv­en to­day via the Elite Ath­lete As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAAP) was sep­a­rate from the Na­tion­al Re­wards and In­cen­tive Pro­gramme.

“The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to make the nec­es­sary in­vest­ment and con­tin­ues to put peo­ple first as a ma­jor part of Vi­sion 2030,” she not­ed.

Min­is­ter Cud­joe added that the Min­istry was heav­i­ly in­volved in the de­vel­op­ment of sport at the com­mu­ni­ty and na­tion­al lev­els and men­tioned sev­er­al on­go­ing ini­tia­tives that sought to de­vel­op com­mu­ni­ties and the sport­ing in­dus­try, such as the “I Choose Sport” Cam­paign in schools, the re­fur­bish­ment of sev­er­al swim­ming pools, the Com­mu­ni­ty Sports Fes­ti­val, The Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion, Mpow­er TT, The Pink Reign Cam­paign, the Com­mu­ni­ty Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme, Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, In­tern­ship pro­grammes, the of­fer of tech­ni­cal sup­port to grant re­cip­i­ents, com­mu­ni­ty groups, and sports or­gan­i­sa­tions, and the con­struc­tion of new fa­cil­i­ties.

Min­is­ter Cud­joe urged re­cip­i­ents to en­sure that the funds dis­bursed were utilised for the in­tend­ed pur­pose and al­so re­mind­ed per­sons that they must fol­low the fund­ing guide­lines, sub­mit their ap­pli­ca­tions on time, and com­mu­ni­cate with the Min­istry.