Sports Minister calls for more water stations across Barbados

Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment Charles Griffith wants to see more water stations at sports and recreational facilities around the island.

He made the call during a brief unveiling ceremony of new water stations from the Newport Hydrate Programme, at the Garfield Sobers Gymnasium on Monday.

Several of these stations have already been installed at schools and other public areas.

Minister Griffith thanked Newport and sponsor of the new station, Banks Holdings Limited (BHL), for bringing the stations to the highly-used recreational area, adding that he hoped to see similar installations at other sites.

“I want to suggest that there are several other locations across the country that I would want to see this type of initiative implemented,” he said.

“At the Ministry of Sports, we are pushing sports at the community level and we own, so to speak, a number of pavilions where cricket is taking place. We have football facilities at those locations as well…. It would be good to have these particular machines dotted across the country at several locations.”

BHL’s Group People Manager Lisa Ridley-Paul said she was happy the project was coming to fruition at the site, adding that the move was in line with the company’s goals of not only being socially responsible but also encouraging Barbadians in healthy habits.

Minister of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment Charles Griffith and BHL’s Group People Manager Lisa Ridley-Paul sampled some of the water.

“In this partnership, this BHL-branded water station is just one of the tangible steps in this water stewardship journey. The gymnasium was chosen because of the number of persons that walk, run, and cycle in the area almost daily. Access to cold, refreshing water is limited and we thought this was one area that would serve a significant number of people,” she said.

“Of course, it goes without saying that at BHL we are fully supportive of the Newport vision for improving the nation’s well-being by encouraging healthy habits, drinking more water, while simultaneously confronting the use of single-use plastic,” Ridley-Paul added. (SB)