BY FABIAN BELGRAVE | OCT 13, 2022
Barbados’ Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, Charles Griffith and Italy’s Ambassador to Barbados, Fabrizio Nicoletti, discuss ways to further the relationship of the two countries during a recent courtesy call. (GP)
Barbados is seeking to further enhance its relationship with Italy in the area of sport.
This was a key talking point when Non-Resident Ambassador of Italy to Barbados, Fabrizio Nicoletti, recently paid a courtesy call on Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, Charles Griffith, at the President’s Suite, National Sports Council’s headquarters, Wildey Gymnasium, Wildey St. Michael.
Minister Griffith indicated to the Ambassador that Barbados would like to continue building its relationship with Italy with respect to sports, scholarships and accessing funding for programmes under his Ministry’s remit.
Ambassador Nicoletti addressed the possibility of accessing the funds. He said: “We offer to Barbados to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) through the United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP27 which has US $4 billion being offered to developing countries.”
Minister Griffith, in acknowledging the offer, stated: “We would be interested to find out how we can source that funding you mentioned because we have a number of projects that would directly benefit from it.”
During the meeting, topics also discussed were grants and scholarship for youths, coach exchanges in football, cricket and Barbados’ indigenous sport, road tennis.
Discussions were also centred on opportunities for sports tourism given that Barbados has sunshine all 12-months of the year, and the potential for Italian footballers to come and train at the modern football facility located within the Complex at Wildey.
Ambassador Nicoletti, who highlighted that scholarships were already part of the relationship Italy has with Barbados, noted that Assistant Designer at Zac Posen, Antonio Cumberbatch, was on scholarship in Italy, while Barbadian teacher, Lisa Rock is at a university over there.
Also in attendance at the courtesy call were Permanent Secretary Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, Yolande Howard; Director of the National Sports Council, Neil Murrell; Foreign Service Officer, Darren Carter and Italy’s Honorary Consul to Barbados, Paula Baldi.
Barbados and Italy established diplomatic relations on August 23, 1977.
