The Peoples' Tribune Person of the Year 2025: Naomi Korstanje

GREAT BAY--The Peoples’ Tribune has selected Naomi Korstanje as our first ever Person of the Year, recognizing a year defined less by headlines, and more by the often-unseen work that determines whether sport in St. Maarten grows into a functioning sector or remains a series of disconnected moments.

Korstanje is pushing sports development as systems-building, the kind that requires governance, planning, training standards, regional partnerships, and a long view. Hers is a deliberate push by the St. Maarten Sports Federation (SMSF), which she leads, to secure and guide local sports development in a new direction. In a sports landscape where public attention often centers on standout athletes, travel, and medals, Korstanje has consistently emphasized the less glamorous foundation that makes success repeatable.

She has argued that a major obstacle to building a sustainable sports sector is that many people, including individuals directly involved, do not fully understand the science of sports development and what it takes to create lasting impact on the community and the economy through a multi-faceted approach. She has pointed out that while the public often celebrates elite-level achievements, such as the Olympics or professional athletes, there is far less attention placed on investing locally in the knowledge and understanding required to build those outcomes. In her view, without vision and a solid foundation, the dream remains empty or unstable.

She has also repeatedly stressed that belief must be matched with competence, and that competence requires investment that goes beyond money. Korstanje has emphasized that valuing sport starts with investing in the mind, because mental investment is what eventually leads to financial investment and she has maintained that when people do not value something, they will never consider it important enough to support.

Reconnecting St. Maarten to regional sport networks

One reason Korstanje stands out is that she has treated St. Maarten’s regional relationships as essential infrastructure. Korstanje has repeatedly represented St. Maarten in meetings and workshops that deal with governance standards, development frameworks, and collaboration, including CANOC assemblies where St. Maarten’s participation is part of staying plugged into resources, best practices, and the wider Caribbean sports agenda. The point is simple, and it is one St. Maarten learns repeatedly in other sectors: small jurisdictions either build smart partnerships, or they get left behind.

Turning values into programs: youth, coaching, and safety

The “why” of Korstanje’s selection is also tied to action. In 2025, SMSF partnered with the National Sports Institute and other stakeholders on structured programs intended to strengthen coaching and use sport as a youth development tool, including initiatives framed around community engagement and empowerment.

On the practical end of sports development, Korstanje has also spoken publicly about baseline standards that protect athletes. Reporting on first aid certification for sports organizations in early 2025 quoted her position clearly, that safety training should not be optional in the coaching environment.

This is the kind of “boring” work that saves lives, reduces preventable harm, raises professionalism, and signals that sport is not just entertainment, it is a structured space where duty of care matters.

A philosophy rooted in identity, pride, and collective purpose

Korstanje’s approach is also emotional, cultural, and connected to identity. In a widely shared social media post reflecting on  Curaçao's advancement to the World Cup, she described what sport can unlock in a people: unity, belief, discipline, and national pride. She wrote about “vision,” “hard work,” “collaboration,” and a feeling that should not fade when the match ends, because it can become fuel for development back home. That post captured her core argument in plain language: sport can become a national tool, but only if a country chooses to build it that way.

Selecting a Person of the Year is not only about popularity or visibility. It is about identifying who is shifting the direction of something that affects daily life, community health, youth opportunity, and national confidence. Korstanje’s case is compelling because she is working on the hard part of sports development, the part most people do not see until it fails:

• Governance and credibility: Stepping into leadership of SMSF during a period of renewed direction and expectations.

• Regional integration: Rebuilding and maintaining ties that keep St. Maarten connected to Caribbean sport networks and development resources.

• Development as a system: Framing sport as an ecosystem that includes coaching quality, athlete welfare, training standards, and long-term planning, not only events and talent.

• Youth-centered impact: Supporting structured initiatives that position sport as part of social development, not only competition. A great example: the Sports Unites initiative.  

• A clear philosophy: Consistently tying sport to identity, unity, pride, and nation-building, while challenging St. Maarten to invest in the knowledge required to do it right.

For a country that often celebrates the peak moments but neglects the scaffolding underneath, Korstanje’s message is a corrective. Her work argues that St. Maarten does not need to wait for miracles, or for a once-in-a-generation athlete to carry national hopes. St. Maarten can build a structure that makes excellence more likely, more frequent, and more accessible.

This is why Naomi Korstanje is The Peoples’ Tribune Person of the Year: she is insisting that St. Maarten stop treating sport like a side story, and start treating it like a sector, with standards, with leadership, and with a purpose that reaches well into the future.

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