(United Nations)- Six-time Trinidad and Tobago archery champion, Anthurium Lewis, has told UN News how sport helped her overcome age barriers in environmental advocacy and how in the future it can contribute to reaching globally agreed poverty and sustainability goals.
Aged 17 and coaching archers three times her age on her home Caribbean island of Tobago, Ms. Lewis transfers the confidence and skills she gained from the sport into advocacy and diplomacy, spaces where youth, especially girls, must often fight to have their voices heard.
“The biggest challenge has to be my age,” she said, highlighting a cultural norm passed down to many young Caribbeans to “speak only when you’re spoken to” and to “leave the older heads to have the big discussions.”
Sport has helped her overcome these barriers: “Archery gives you that discipline to keep pushing forward,” she said.
Now, Ms. Lewis wants to use her platform as a Young Leader for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the internationally agreed targets aimed at boosting peace and prosperity for people and the planet – to show that young people can lead change when the world makes space for their voices and equips them with the right skills.
Sport, she believes, is one of the most powerful ways to develop these skills.
‘Children can do it’
We have a say. We have the intellect. We have the passion behind it as well. You don’t have to wait until you’re 25 to want to fight for a cause…We can start right now.
The most profound transformation sport brings is quieter than a trophy or a title; it begins in the mind.
She believes that archery is 80 per cent a test of mentality with the self-esteem and discipline it builds in a young person transferring into all parts of their life.
However, acknowledging the challenges other young people face with powerful ideas but nowhere to turn, Ms. Lewis is encouraging her peers to have confidence in their voice.
“Children can do it. We have a say. We have the intellect. We have the passion behind it as well. You don’t have to wait until you’re 25 to want to fight for a cause…We can start right now.”
Sustainability mission
Through her foundation, Lewis is on a mission to plant native fruit trees across Tobago to bring the island toward more sustainable practices and boost food security.
She also visits schools, communities and faith-based organizations, where she works to empower young people to plant fruit trees, such as sapodilla, soursop, custard apple, breadfruit and starfruit.
“You won’t just find me planting,” she said, “You’ll actually find other young people, very young children as well, going out there and planting their own fruit trees that they will look after.”
Efforts pay off
On her first visit to one rural primary school in Tobago, Lewis arrived to find the school’s gardening area overgrown and abandoned, but two months later, she returned to find it transformed: it was clear and full of children diligently tending to their plants during the school day.
“I was quite pleased by that change,” she said, emphasising that the work also gives children a chance to step outside the noise of the classroom, connect with their peers and build something together with their own hands.
For Ms. Lewis, that sense of ownership, that fosters discipline and self-confidence, is the whole point.
Anthurium Lewis spoke to UN News ahead of the annual ECOSOC Youth Forum (April 14-16, 2026) which brings young leaders together with policymakers, to focus on advancing the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals.
