Soraya Toppin-Herbert

Raya 34 Sports, is a registered Barbadian nonprofit seeking to empower and develop young children and young adults through the blending of sports and education. Soraya (30) founded the organisation with the goal to ensure that children in under-served communities have easy and affordable access to experience sports programs that encourage their physical, personal and social development by supporting the creation of safe places to play, grow, and learn.

Alongside providing sports training and experience to encourage more children into sport, the organisations runs a program  called  More  Than  Boots  teaching  them  about  more  than  the  sport.  They  do  activities  like  hiking, camping  and  beach  cleanups.

Soraya took part in YBI’s Green and Social toolkit pilot, supported by Barbados Youth Business Trust .

“The  support  I  received  as  part  of  the  Green  and  Social  Toolkit  was  really  to  help  me  to  narrow  down  on  the  problem  that  I  was  trying  to  solve .

The toolkit has impacted my business and personal life by helping me to be more focused on what we wanted to do as a business and not put our energy into too many places that wouldn’t necessarily tie back to what we wanted to achieve. I would say the same for my personal life because once I get the business kind of streamlined, it takes a little bit of pressure off of my personal life as well.”

Soraya is looking to increase her impact through and expand the More Than Boots Programme.