Deadline looms for CSOs to access free governance certification

With just five days re­main­ing, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions (CSOs) across Trinidad and To­ba­go are be­ing urged to seize a rare op­por­tu­ni­ty to earn recog­nised pro­fes­sion­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion at no cost.

The IG­NITE CSOs Mi­cro-Cre­den­tial Schol­ar­ship, which clos­es at mid­night on Sat­ur­day, June 20, 2026, of­fers free on­line cours­es in Gov­er­nance, Fi­nan­cial Man­age­ment, and Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment — each tai­lored specif­i­cal­ly to the re­al­i­ties of CSOs.

De­liv­ered on de­mand, the cours­es can be com­plet­ed in a mat­ter of hours, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for par­tic­i­pants to start now and fin­ish be­fore the dead­line. Cer­tifi­cates are is­sued by the Caribbean Cor­po­rate Gov­er­nance In­sti­tute (CC­GI) and the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (HRMATT), two re­spect­ed na­tion­al pro­fes­sion­al bod­ies.

The ini­tia­tive is part of the wider IG­NITE CSOs project, fund­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Union and im­ple­ment­ed by The Crop­per Foun­da­tion in part­ner­ship with Veni Ap­wann. The 30-month pro­gramme has fo­cused on strength­en­ing the sec­tor’s ca­pac­i­ty for self-reg­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing the de­vel­op­ment of the Na­tion­al Ac­count­abil­i­ty Frame­work (NAF) and its CSO Self-As­sess­ment Tool.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of The Crop­per Foun­da­tion Cherisse Braith­waite-Joseph em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the schol­ar­ship, not­ing that civ­il so­ci­ety of­ten re­lies on vol­un­teers and staff who are asked to per­form pro­fes­sion­al-lev­el work with­out ac­cess to pro­fes­sion­al train­ing.

“Civ­il so­ci­ety runs on the en­er­gy of its peo­ple, and too of­ten those peo­ple are asked to do high­ly pro­fes­sion­al work with­out ac­cess to pro­fes­sion­al train­ing. These mi­cro­cre­den­tials can change that,” Braith­waite-Joseph said. “They were built for CSOs, with CSOs, and cer­ti­fied by the same pro­fes­sion­al bod­ies trust­ed across the pri­vate sec­tor. For the next five days they are com­plete­ly free. Our mes­sage to every­one in the sec­tor is sim­ple: claim your cer­tifi­cate; it be­longs to you.”

The schol­ar­ship is open to any­one in­volved in CSOs, broad­ly de­fined to in­clude NGOs, com­mu­ni­ty-based or­gan­i­sa­tions, faith-based groups, youth net­works, sport­ing bod­ies, vil­lage and com­mu­ni­ty coun­cils, foun­da­tions, and pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­a­tions — whether large or small, reg­is­tered or grass­roots.

Be­fore ac­cess­ing the schol­ar­ship, par­tic­i­pants are asked to read the NAF and com­plete their or­gan­i­sa­tion’s first self-as­sess­ment, both avail­able at cso­go.org. Once en­rolled, they can com­plete the cours­es at their own pace but must fin­ish by June 20 to qual­i­fy for free cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

The Crop­per Foun­da­tion is urg­ing those who have al­ready be­gun cours­es to com­plete them quick­ly and en­cour­ag­ing new par­tic­i­pants to reg­is­ter im­me­di­ate­ly at cso­go.org/schol­ar­ship/. Af­ter the dead­line, the win­dow for free cer­ti­fi­ca­tion clos­es, and par­tic­i­pants will need to cov­er the costs them­selves.

This ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step in build­ing the pro­fes­sion­al ca­pac­i­ty of civ­il so­ci­ety, en­sur­ing that or­gan­i­sa­tions ded­i­cat­ed to the pub­lic good are equipped with the gov­er­nance, fi­nan­cial, and hu­man re­source skills nec­es­sary to thrive.