The Jamaica Netball Association (JNA) yesterday graduated 22 members of the Under-13 Scotia Group nursery programme into the Under-16 squad, which will be preparing for next year's Caribbean Championships in Barbados.

The youngsters were each presented with a certificate of participation, which was attended by their parents and guardians at the Scotia Group Sports Club at Liguanea.

"This is our pride and joy because it is the foundation on which we expect to get future Sunshine Girls from," said Marva Bernard, president of the JNA.

"These are our future coaches and future umpires and I just really want to thank sponsors Spike and Scotia Bank, they had the vision to come on board with us."

Bernard also disclosed that 15 of the graduates have been selected to be trained to become junior umpires and that they will also be doing management and coaches training with some of them in the near future.

She added that girls in the programme were selected from across the island and also from the school and club competitions.

Joan Forrest-Henry, director of marketing services, Scotia Group, which has sponsored the programme for the past three years at a cost of $12 million, said her company is committed to helping with the development of netball.

"This is succession planning that we have going on because we have to identify the next set of Sunshine Girls and so we are taking them from the nursery level all the way up," she said. "We also sponsor the Under-16 programme as well.

"These girls are extremely talented because the vision was to identify the best of the best and we put them in a coaching programme from early so that we can nurture and hone them," added Forrest-Henry.