For the mid­dle class and above it’s called mul­ti­ple in­come streams. For the poor and work­ing-class it’s called “hus­tle”.

In re­cent years glob­al­i­sa­tion and cap­i­tal­ism have come un­der pop­ulist crit­i­cism for widen­ing the eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty gap. No ge­o­graph­ic re­gion has been spared the con­se­quences.

Dif­fer­ent so­lu­tions have been put for­ward by the po­lit­i­cal class with pro­found im­pli­ca­tions as hard­line pol­i­tics have made in­roads. Why is eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty such an ir­refutable re­al­i­ty for many? While aca­d­e­mics and in­tel­lec­tu­als have ar­gued that more peo­ple have been lift­ed out of pover­ty than at any time in the his­to­ry of mankind, there are those who say that is a the­o­ret­i­cal ar­gu­ment. On the ground, the hard, cold re­al­i­ty is lived every­day by thou­sands of peo­ple.

It’s not a case of per­cep­tion it is re­al. Peo­ple are catch­ing their “nen­nen”. As the world econ­o­my strug­gles to ad­dress the var­i­ous is­sues. The im­pact is de­bil­i­tat­ing for many com­mu­ni­ties and so­ci­eties.

Some make the point that tech­nol­o­gy has lev­elled the play­ing field and made the world small­er and more ac­ces­si­ble.

Tech­nol­o­gy has been both a bless­ing and a curse. As small is­land states such as T&T try to cope and sta­bilise. There is an in­creas­ing sense of be­ing over­whelmed.

Un­less there is a change in in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive at­ti­tude, find­ing a way out of our cur­rent eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion is like­ly to be un­suc­cess­ful. We can­not nar­row the gap if we be­lieve it can’t be done.

Some peo­ple be­lieve their sit­u­a­tion is dire and a gov­ern­ment must solve it. T&T has many pow­er­ful pos­i­tives and pos­si­bil­i­ties to cre­ate sus­tain­able wealth-gen­er­a­tion and to bridge the eco­nom­ic gap be­tween the so-called haves and have nots. Sports have car­ried the T&T name around the world.

On Thurs­day, the fifth T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee Sports In­dus­try T&T con­fer­ence will be held at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain and the pur­pose of the con­fer­ence is to ed­u­cate, ad­vo­cate and pro­vide thought lead­er­ship for the vi­sion of a sus­tain­able, en­tre­pre­neur­ial mul­ti-bil­lion sports in­dus­try which T&T is part of—like it or not.

Dig­ging out of the neg­a­tive eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion is a task for every­one. Help isn’t on the way. Ei­ther get up and get or roll over and die. The T&T Sport In­dus­try is a sleep­ing gi­ant and no one will awak­en the gi­ant if we all sit on our hands and moan and com­plain.

T&T has al­ways been a cre­ative, cul­tur­al and sport­ing hub. It is unique. It is laid back. It com­bines a fun-lov­ing lifestyle with an aes­thet­ic di­ver­si­ty that is ex­cit­ing. Our spon­tane­ity is re­flect­ed in pos­i­tive ways. Cre­ativ­i­ty is his­tor­i­cal­ly our defin­ing at­tribute and at­trac­tion. A change in at­ti­tude will un­earth un­ex­pect­ed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the po­ten­tial in­her­ent with­in T&T to cre­ate a bet­ter stan­dard of liv­ing for those who may have felt ei­ther left be­hind and or left out of the oil and gas have dri­ven a boom. Mon­ey isn’t the prob­lem our at­ti­tude is.

T&T is on the rise. An en­tre­pre­neur­ial at­ti­tude of­fers a coun­ter­point to the myths of eco­nom­ic and in­come in­equal­i­ty. We have the in­tel­lec­tu­al ca­pac­i­ty, the skills to in­no­vate, to be en­tre­pre­neurs, to be in­ven­tors in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in this ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the writer and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion of which he is a stake­hold­er.