CANOC brainstorms to keep girls in sports

The growing concerns in the region whereby girls are not staying in sports as they ought to, were delineated at a two- day workshop put on by the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC), on September 18 and 19, 2026 at the Paradise Beach Hotel in Villa.

Hence, the 23 participants who were from member countries of CANOC, delved deep into the matter and shared their varied experiences to devise ways to buck the trend.

Among the topics looked at during the two days were how to keep girls in sports, body confidence, and safeguarding.

The participant coaches thus were challenged to come up with ways to keep girls in sports, and respond to how are they going to make the environments fun or are they willing to change coaching habits.

These key searching questions are left to be answered as the attendees spread the message by hosting subsequent workshops and knowledge sharing sessions in their respective countries.

The main facilitator for the workshop, Grenadian Danisha Brathwaite who is the regional trainer for TAFISA, the Association for International Sports for All, gave her assessment.

“It was a training of trainers’ session, so these coaches would go back within their countries and host workshops.”

Brathwaite noted that the workshop was timely because, “based on the research that we have done, girls are

dropping out in sports more drastically than boys, therefore the entire objective was basically making a safe space for girls within sports”.

The facilitator highlighted that cultivating a safe space for girls was one of the pathways to keep them in sports.

“We want the coaches to be able to create those safe spaces for girls. And if they’re not able to talk to their coach, at least there are some kinds of safeguarding policy within the coaches, their club, within their association, where the girls can report, feel safe and knowing that whatever they report, it will be worked on,” Braithwaite said.