Over 10 000 log on for “How To” Free Education Series

The Ministry of Sport and Community Development through its Community Development Division, is transforming how it delivers developmental programming to communities. Its Community Education Programme (CEP) is one of the most popular and sought after annual training programmes, with over 10 000 accessing training annually.  However, due to the global pandemic, the programme was cancelled for 2020.  The staff and tutors were therefore charged with adapting and delivering the training to reach as many communities across Trinidad and Tobago.  The “How to” series, a pilot online education series on the Ministry’s facebook and IG pages, was launched on Thursday 8th October, 2020 with the first training video, “How to make Dhalpurie”.  1200 persons logged on for the 9:00am launch of the first free training session and based on demand, the video has remained accessible amassing over 10,000 views to date.

Minister of Sport and Community Development, the Honourable Shamfa Cudjoe said, “We are extremely thankful for our tutors, who have offered their time and skill to participate in this initiative and also produced these videos themselves. The overwhelming response online from our citizenry speaks to the importance of our classes. With this in mind we have a renewed commitment to find ways to reach out to our communities to fulfil our mandate through the use of innovation and technology.” Minister Cudjoe also said that “In these unprecedented times, technology is fast becoming the only portal to maintain human contact and has also provided the Ministry the opportunity to re-strategize how these programmes are to be executed”.

The series is meant to provide simple “How To” videos for persons to follow from the comfort of their homes.  This weekly four part pilot session is produced by the Community Education Programme tutors who share their skill and passion for creating delicious dishes and extraordinary craft using simple ingredients and materials. Over the next three Thursdays, the “How to” sessions will focus on Hair treatment, Soap Making and Stuffed Wantons.

The series will run during the months of October and November, every Thursday at 9:00 a.m. on the Ministry’s social media handles – Ministry of Sport and Community Development on Facebook and SportandCommDevTT on IGTV. No registration is required to participate.