Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico 22/11/2012

This is the fourth and final part of Blanca Ribas Turon's report on her tour of South America to promote DanceSport on behalf of the WDSF Membership Commission.

Previously Blanca wrote about her work training young dancers in Argentina (here), in Brazil and in Chile (here), and in Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia (here).

I was supposed to fly from Caracas to Mexico. But DanceSport officials in Trinidad and Tobago had apparently heard of or read about my journey. Neil Derrick, the President of the WDSF Member Body for Trinidad and Tobago asked Carlos Freitag at Annual Meeting in Germany if I could make a detour and visit that country too. And so it came that I landed in Port of Spain.

This proved to be worth it. I was especially impressed by the project to integrate DanceSport nationwide in school sports. After a successful pilot project at 150 schools, there are now programmes at 750 schools! What an opportunity and a challenge for DanceSport in Trinidad and Tobago. This led to many children and adolescents attending my workshops with their coaches. This clearly showed that the strategy of the DanceSport Federation NABDATT to inspire young peopleto take part in our artistic sports works well.

From Port of Spain I finally travelled to my last country, to Mexico. There, too, I enjoyed it a lot to work together with so many young and talented couples. During the national championships I saw just how many DanceSport enthusiasts there are in Mexico.

In conclusion I can say that this trip has been very rewarding. In interviews for newspapers, radio and TV I had the opportunity to present the DanceSport and the WDSF in all countries. I am very impressed by the many children and young people who practicse DanceSport already today in Latin America and I am glad that they start to participation in the World Championships. That gives me hope that this economically fast-growing continent will also play an important role in DanceSport in the years to come. I am looking forward to The World Games in July 2013, when some couples from Latin America will be on the floor for the very first time!