It was a bee­hive of ac­tiv­i­ty as some 120 boys and girls from across south-east­ern Trinidad con­verged at the Ma­yaro Re­source Cen­tre last week­end to take part in the Ma­yaro Youth Foot­ball Fes­ti­val held un­der the ban­ner of “Shine On”.

​As part of the youth de­vel­op­ment com­po­nent of the an­nu­al Ma­yaro Foot­ball League (MFL), this event was spon­sored by bp Trinidad and To­ba­go (bpTT) and man­aged by the All Ma­yaro Sports Foun­da­tion (AMSF). This fol­lows the re­cent launch of the 27th year of the MFL, which has eight re­gion­al teams com­pet­ing for the Raza­ck Jan Memo­r­i­al League and the Le­ston Paul Knock­out Cup.

​Ac­cord­ing to Karis­sa Bis­soon, vice-pres­i­dent, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs, bpTT, “First, we must all con­grat­u­late the AMSF for mak­ing this event a re­al­i­ty. Your hard work and vi­sion are con­tribut­ing to the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the com­mu­ni­ty. Giv­en the rich sport­ing his­to­ry of this re­gion, as well as the bound­less po­ten­tial of its youth, bpTT is proud to stand with you in sup­port. We are com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing sport, so that it re­mains a pil­lar of op­por­tu­ni­ty and em­pow­er­ment for this com­mu­ni­ty and coun­try. This youth foot­ball fes­ti­val is fur­ther demon­stra­tion of the fact that we be­lieve in you, we be­lieve in your tal­ent and we be­lieve in your po­ten­tial.”

​The two-day camp fea­tured ex­pe­ri­enced coach­es drilling as­pir­ing foot­ballers be­tween the ages of six and 17 on as­pects of the game such as ball con­trol, drib­bling, pass­ing, tac­ti­cal con­cepts, as well as phys­i­cal con­di­tion­ing and men­tal fo­cus in var­i­ous age cat­e­gories. The tech­ni­cal train­ing was then trans­lat­ed to prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence via com­pet­i­tive age cat­e­go­ry games on the sec­ond day of the camp.

​Fol­low­ing the end of the camp, bpTT and AMSF host­ed an awards cer­e­mo­ny where the top per­form­ers were recog­nised for their ef­forts in em­u­lat­ing the train­ing pro­vid­ed. The event al­so in­clud­ed a seg­ment where out­stand­ing women foot­ballers from the com­mu­ni­ty were recog­nised for blaz­ing the trail for oth­ers to fol­low. Re­ceiv­ing a com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque and the ad­mi­ra­tion of the young foot­ballers were Don­na-Mae McIn­tosh, Shaquil­la Hamil­ton, Lin­fah Jones, and Chris­sy Mitchell. These Ma­yaro-born women all rep­re­sent­ed T&T foot­ball at the high­est lev­els.

​In at­ten­dance at the cer­e­mo­ny and shar­ing re­marks were Wil­fred Nicholas Mor­ris, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ma­yaro; Dar­ron Charles, Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer, Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs; Jame­son Rigues, third Vice-Pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) and AMSF’s Chair­man; Ray­mon Co­zi­er, Al­der­man of the Ma­yaro-Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion; Ryan Stew­art, Coun­cil­lor for Ma­yaro North and for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller; and T’Mia Fran­cis, Miss Ma­yaro and Miss World T&T del­e­gate 2025.

​The Ma­yaro MP gave glow­ing trib­ute to the ini­tia­tive, “We have to thank bpTT for the great work they have done in the Ma­yaro com­mu­ni­ty for decades. Thank you for your ded­i­ca­tion to our young peo­ple, to our com­mu­ni­ty and our coun­try. I am very grate­ful for all of the in­di­vid­u­als and stake­hold­ers who have sup­port­ed this event be­cause this is the fu­ture, not on­ly of Ma­yaro, but for our coun­try.”

​In terms of the next steps for the young ath­letes, the AMSF chair­man, Jame­son Rigues, ex­plained that the ul­ti­mate vi­sion is to have a sport de­vel­op­ment acad­e­my that would re­tain the im­pres­sive turnout of young peo­ple that at­tend­ed the camp. The train­ing acad­e­my would al­so con­tin­ue to un­earth and de­vel­op the com­mu­ni­ty’s prodi­gious tal­ent pool in var­i­ous sport­ing dis­ci­plines. In terms of max­imis­ing his var­i­ous roles, Rigues al­so ex­plained that the acad­e­my would be aligned with the TTFA High Per­for­mance Pro­gramme, where na­tion­al coach­es would pro­vide train­ing while al­so scout­ing for prospects.

​Hav­ing ex­celled in the foot­ball fes­ti­val, for which he re­ceived an award, 11-year-old De­shawn Charles was elat­ed to re­late his ex­pe­ri­ence, “I play with teams in my school and com­mu­ni­ty, and this camp pro­vid­ed a lot of train­ing that will ben­e­fit me and the oth­er par­tic­i­pants. Per­son­al­ly, I ap­pre­ci­at­ed the fact that they put fo­cus on dis­ci­pline and re­spect, be­cause I think this is what makes a great foot­baller. My dream is to make the na­tion­al team, and this camp in­spired me to re­al­ly put in the work to achieve that. It would be great to see oth­er boys and girls from this camp on that same jour­ney as me.”

​In demon­strat­ing the ex­pan­sive in­tent of this ini­tia­tive, the theme of the camp was al­so guid­ed by in­put from Miss Ma­yaro, T’Mia Fran­cis, who used the fes­ti­val as a plat­form for cham­pi­oning her ‘Beau­ty with a Pur­pose: Shine On’ project. The girls’ camp uni­forms were pro­vid­ed in pur­ple and pink to raise aware­ness about breast can­cer, as well as to em­pow­er young women to get more in­volved in com­pet­i­tive sports. Fran­cis proud­ly not­ed that she her­self had start­ed off her jour­ney as a mem­ber of the sport­ing-based MayGuaya Youth Acad­e­my led by re­spect­ed coach, Joseph Weekes.

​“I want­ed to be part of an ini­tia­tive to give youths the same chances that I had grow­ing up in this com­mu­ni­ty, and I am thank­ful that bpTT and the AMSF pro­vid­ed this op­por­tu­ni­ty. Through the av­enue of sport, these young foot­ballers got a chance to dis­cov­er their strength, their tal­ent and their unique voic­es. It was es­pe­cial­ly grat­i­fy­ing to see so many par­ents and sup­port­ers come and join hands as a com­mu­ni­ty to lift up our young men and women,” Fran­cis said.