HISTORY OF THE
PRINCES TOWN COMMUNITIES HEALTH AND WELLNESS SPORTS ACADEMY
The Academy has its beginnings from the simple act of caring. One day in 2006, 9 youths were seen entering a video club in the neighborhood, illegally i.e. they were under aged and no one saw it fit to reprimand them. Coach Edwin Walcott was a resident of this neighborhood. His family brought the incident to his attention and he took it upon himself to encourage these youths to form a football club. Thus began the Century Coaching School where the tagline was Zero to 100 performance. At the time, Coach was employed as a crane operator and his employers granted him the time off to run the club on Saturdays.Membership jumped from 9 to 32 in 3-4 months. The Perry Young ground was used and believing that this ground was not suitable for young ladies in terms of safety aspect, Coach approached Princes Town West and St. Stephens College for the use of their grounds. These presented better access to transport after sessions as well as safety. By this time our membership exceeded 100 members.
He established the following guidelines which are at the core of the Academy:
· Character enhancement
· Health & Wellness
· Sports Performance
Parents were limited to be co-members/affiliates. Over ten years later, Coach Walcott has trained more than 2000 kids. These members came through various bodies:
· St. Stephen’s Anglican Primary School
· St. Stephen’s College
· 5th Company Baptist School
· New Grant Anglican School
· St. Michaels Anglican School
· Prisons Youth Club
· Police Youth Club
· Princes Town District Cub Scouts (Coach Walcott is the President of this District)
· Marabella Senior Secondary School (The Can Do Club)
Subsequent to that, the Ministry of Sports conducted an Easter and an August Camp at St. Stephens College. Both camps were successful, but there was no continuity because of the limitations of the Ministry of Sport.
In 2011 Coach Walcott upgraded the club to a legal NGO, registered as Princes Town Communities Health & Wellness Sports Academy.
The Academy has provided academic assists to the Princes Town Community. Its programs include cardio/dance exercise programs, physical training programmes, and youth development programs. We partnered with the Princes Town Communities College to conduct an academic programme for underachievers. 17 students attended this programme with ten achieving 5+ subjects.
Our Priorities Remain:
- Service to the children of the community, keeping them off the street and giving them a sense of belonging.
- Having youths of all ages being trained to play football with the objective of becoming better at what they seek to achieve, is not so trifling enough for us. We truly believe that we can accomplish much more and aim to prove ourselves right in this assessment.
FROM 2006-2016 AND OUTWARD BOUND
Discipline, friendship, respect and camaraderie aka sportsmanship and fair play: all these attributes gained through the teaching and learning in its simplest form. The Ethics of Mediocrity is no longer an option, we will change gears that will give rise to our intention to succeed at the highest possible regardless of who or what chooses to halt said progress.
As a student of leadership, Coach Walcott found it necessary to bring on board a team that can produce the kind of results necessary for an engaging organisation. His vision is to produce heights of performances that afford the Academy the opportunity to compete at the highest levels begetting an NGO of our caliber. The Academy is an NGO with a proven track record that Coach Walcott has attained and still maintains.
Our team will use the energy necessary to improve our model to the level of excellence required to attract the positive response of parents, friends and fans of which our country is so in need of. We will become an agent of high performance to lead the way inclusive of sports, attractive football with a winning mentality, academic results (higher learning) and character of class. These achievable quantities will surely catch the eyes of the national communities, business re sponsors and bring out the fans of support. This we aim to pursue and achieve.
We have proven, in simple fashion, to be one of the more result-oriented NGOs within the T&T Community. Although our track record of training over 1000 young men and women from age 6 years to 25 years over an 11 year period, 2006-2017 is not considered by any stretch of the imagination as mediocre, we as a self-help institution know how much further we could have gone had the obvious support factor been available to us during this period. The overall development of the members of the Academy lends credence to grass-roots method of training with limited access to equipment.
THE WAY FORWARD 2017
We met our short-term goal of clarifying all aspects of the management team within the months of January /February without fail. All members and associates legally bounded, have stated their case relating to the level of commitment available to this new or improved approach, notwithstanding the Legal liabilities attached to the smooth running/transition that for some time, has been neglected. No blame is intended, but the legal requirements and the reputation garnered has now allowed us the opportunity to benefit from operational and sponsorship funding if and when our operations are professionally initiated.
As the incorporator of the organisation with a veto vote, Coach suggested at the Academy’s first 2017 meeting that a vote of confidence be taken, giving Ms. Johanna Andrews full authority to engage in all businesses associated with the restructuring of the Academy vision for internal and external business development.
He recommended that Ms. Andrews, as someone who has managed business from the ground level interacting and coordinating with executive management teams of industrial companies, operates as a coordinator with administrative powers. This is not much different from what prevails. The exception is that the Academy will now have a two-fold operation. One that brings us as an institution that trains children in different aspects of football, academic assists and health, wellness and character enhancement training and secondly a business initiative segment that allows for innovative measures for funding.
OUR CURRENT AGENDA:
Transforming lives - relating to the changing face of the Academy, we are constantly seeking
to improve the relative status of what we presently represent:
Transformation - How
We know why we seek to do this; the other aspect is how we perceive to do this. The answer is - seeking to become self-reliant.The Challenge of How
Creating avenues that allow us to achieve a financial foundation by using the assets we have: talent and abilities.· Sports/Health and Wellness –challenging the system as we see it – by re-inventing, as we prepare our athletes/footballers/academic achievers.
· Taking this challenge to another level. That of creating a team of boys & girls to show by performance how it can be done.
· Seeking to create an immediate source of income whilst promoting Health and Wellness throughout our communities – by demonstrating to schools and communities within the environs and even outside the boundaries, that disease prevention is key to the welfare of our communities.
We are in possession of a Model of Coaching and preparation that can challenge the system and create avenues for creating scholarships if we can have stakeholders who genuinely want to see young footballers achieve scholarships.
This Model will assist members/players in achieving higher grades within one semester. With this achievement, the pursuit of scholarships can become a business for any insightful and ambitious sponsor. We are working toward this goal, whilst bringing to our region – Princes Town and environs, the next football school whose ambition is academic/sports excellence.
We should also add that we do not buy players, we produce players from 0% to players that football clubs and schools pursue every year.
The Academy’s training staff comprises of on-field coaches and off the field and motivational assistants. We have been producing many youth footballers, some at club level and many of whom are presently playing for what are considered ‘football schools’, with many hoping that they will achieve a scholarship.
One of our objectives is to transform into a “Football Factory”. We have already proven that it can become a reality. What is required is an end product: An Academic/Sports student with the necessary qualities that befits a scholarship qualifier. Our process is outlined further in this proposal.
OUR APPROACH
1 Health/Wellness
Illnesses that are typical of the hypokinetic or degenerative group are coronary artery disease, high blood pressure (HBP), lower back trauma, obesity, diabetes and osteoporosis. Cardiovascular diseases have posed the longest and most serious health problems in modern life, but obesity-related diabetes is an increasingly serious national health issue.
We believe that this is a NATIONAL CALL to action. Why? - It is all too obvious. These ailments and problems are not transmitted through infections. Instead, they develop through inappropriate diet and lack of exercise. This is why fitness and physical activity have become so important to the national health agenda.
To this end, we propose to:
· Visit and present to our MPs the idea to conduct keep fit sessions at the convenience of all parties concerned – parents and children.
· Seek permission once again to conduct keep fit sessions at schools/organisations, for a minimal fee by each participant. Time and arrangement can be flexible.
· Notify all parties concerned with our communities of this initiative, with a comprehensive format, inclusive of genetic diseases e.g. The MP Eastern Counties and schools.
We already have held demonstrations at some schools and organisations: St. Stephen’s Anglican, St. Michaels Anglican, Fifth Company Baptist School, the Senior Citizens Centre Princes Town, to name a few.
2. Presenting
Dance Exercise (Cardio)
Introduction to Physical Fitness
for all ages
Cardio Dance Exercise Trini Style (all-inclusive methods)
We are seeking to achieve, a lifespan policy of health and wellness – not limited by age or genderOutlining infrastructure, such as the facilities, spaces and programs that enable healthy lifestyles so that children, youths and adults can become and stay physically active.
3. Anger management & conflict resolution
We can talk about this mode of presentation until we become blue in the face, if we do not accept the fact that children, all children need love and proper attention, inclusive of lending them an ear and extending friendship and family accepted models, where patience, love and understanding become the key virtues, we will continue to experience the mire of resistance and contempt of the systems that continue to reject them.
We have to come to terms with the fact that most young people are exposed to a vast amount of negative publicity that seeks to influence their response in support of promoting same. This false culture is not recognized by many of them and this becomes the norm for many of them. Can someone explain how media and other forms of technological exposure can be balanced, where the negatives and positives are chosen for their values?
The Princes Town Communities Health, Wellness and Sports Academy has, for a number of years, had the fortunate experience of helping to reshape many a young person’s (male and female) attitude towards discipline from a positive stand point.
One of our greatest results has been the “CAN-DO” experience which took place at Marabella Senior Comprehensive School in 2002. Coach Walcott was asked by the authorities of the school to form and coach the school’s football team. At the time, the school was having problems with a number of students who refused to attend classes, even with a number of community police stationed at the school. Inspector Emmanuel and Sergeant Collymoore were in charge then. The then scenario was not unlike a juvenile movie. It was unthinkable that such a scene was actually taking place on a school compound.
Coach Walcott and Coach Noel readily accepted the challenge and made a complete turnaround in the students. The staff at the school were amazed and impressed at the outcome. The students made a grand effort to prove their worth branding themselves the CAN-DO club. Self-confidence soared. Many of them have remained in touch over the years with the coach who became a father to them.
4. Player Development
The process to include:
· Student/players whose ambition is to seek to acquire same
· Parents/Guardians support which, without it, can be costly to a student/player
· A specific Coaching and Training regimen, inclusive of special attention to achieving same
· All such members must be registered as a member of the Academy
· At the onset, a limited number of participants to prove the programme relevance (17-18 per team)
· In the first instance, 18 weeks of team or individual/personal training to prove results et al
· Academic monitoring, assist academic awareness by stakeholders
· Partnerships and collaborations
· Therapeutic processes to be included
5. Agricultural Program
1. Proper eating habits which will assist in combating diseases and enhance lifespan
2. Achieve a financial foundation for members
We have on board an agricultural engineer whose organic food model has proven to be successful.
