As the applied creative arts programme Arts-in-Action (AiA) celebrates its 22nd year of existence, it is honouring its founders and alumni during its annual summer programmes. The theme of this year’s Discovery Camp, for children aged five to 13 years, is Ole Story Time: A Tribute to Ma Story. It honours the late Samantha Pierre, who was known for her portrayal of the character Ma Story. 

AiA creative development officer Patrice Briggs said Pierre, who died in 2010, is fondly remembered by all who knew her. “Sam was a great actress, a great facilitator, and talking and being a people person is something she definitely was. She would take (others’) stories and use parts of them to create stories to share back to others and with the children.”

Briggs said Pierre traditionally opened her performances with a signature song, “Come gather round children, we're telling stories this evening.” 

Pierre used songs, games and folklore characters such as Anansi, Mama Glo and Papa Bois to create stories and deliver messages “whether it's about learning values and traditions, things like respect, all those different life skills and themes that we grew up with long time ago and that are being forgotten in our society today. 

“Storytelling was in Sam's blood, she was a born storyteller.”

Pierre got her start in the Cayman Islands where she did her first storytelling performance at the Gimistory Storytelling Festival and continued on to perform at storytelling festivals in the Caribbean, North America and the UK. She also performed in character as Ma Story in Talk Tent with Paul Keens-Douglas for many years. 

Briggs said the tribute to Pierre would be embedded within the children’s activities, which will either focus on the art of storytelling or feature some of Pierre's storytelling style. They will also have the opportunity to work with one of her stories as part of the final production of the camp. During the camp period, campers work with their tutors towards a dramatic presentation they showcase to their family and friends on the last day.

AiA began in 1994 as an outreach programme of the Department of Creative and Festival Arts at UWI, St Augustine. It uses theatre in education techniques to engage participants. 

“We use applied creative arts as a means of educating and empowering our participants on different issues, so we can do social issues, environmental issues, curriculum issues, any and everything basically, we will deal with but using theatre and the arts as a means to do that. It's very interactive, it's very powerful, it's very engaging,” Briggs said.

The first cycle of AiA’s Children’s Discovery Camp runs from July 11- 30 and the second cycle runs from August 8- 20.

More info
Call 289-4AIA or email: email@artsinaction.org.

Car guys in Trinbago of the 1950s and 1960s would remember a greenish motor oil of excellent quality called Duckham’s which at the time was second only to Castrol in the world as a manufacturer of this commodity. What few realised was how intimate a connection Duckham’s had to Trinidad’s early oil days. 

Alexander Duckham (1877-1945) was the son of a successful mechanical engineer which was a career that he himself followed. After a short stint working for a syndicate distributing heating oil in Britain, Alexander was advised to study the chemistry of lubricating oils which he undertook with a passion.

In 1899 he purchased his first automobile and founded Alexander Duckham and Co, which specialised in motor lubrication. The firm was so successful, it led Duckham to think about vertical integration of his operations by finding a source of crude oil which was the basis of his refined motor lubricants.  

The company had assembled a small team of chemists and specialist engineers over time. One of these people was dispatched to Barbados where in 1896, the West India Petroleum Company had drilled several wells. In 1905 the Duckham’s geologist arrived in the Turner Hall area of that island to assess the potential of the wells which were producing a significant output.

For whatever reason, the man’s report back to his superiors in London was not favourable and Duckham immediately cabled a message for him to examine Trinidad instead where since 1902, productive wells had been drilled at Guayaguayare by Major Randolph Rust and the presence of the Pitch Lake indicated the existence of sizeable petroleum deposits. 

The evaluations and surveys of the Duckham’s man paralleled and coincided with similar work being done in the Guapo area near Point Fortin by petroleum geologist, Arthur Beeby-Thompson. This latter oil pioneer was to prove that Trinidad had vast oil reserves and was to be the driving force behind the birth of the local oil industry. 

Thompson had formed the Trinidad Petroleum Company in 1907 and was voraciously acquiring leases on Crown lands as well as from private landholders in the southwestern peninsula in the Guapo, La Brea, Fyzabad and Point Fortin which promised great returns. Duckham was then forced to look elsewhere for his crude oil which happened to be at a location not traditionally understood to be part of Trinidad’s oil belt even today. 

In the rolling hills of the Central Range was the little village of Tabaquite. It had barely existed until the cocoa boom of 1870-1920 when global prices skyrocketed, resulting in a rapid expansion of production in Trinidad. A large number of estates sprang up in this area which was eminently suitable for cultivation and which yielded great rewards for the planters both large and small.

It was a highly mixed population which formed the main settlement in the early 1890s, consisting of white proprietors, Afro and Indo Trinidadian smallholders, Chinese merchants and ‘cocoa panyols’ from Venezuela who provided skilled labour. 

The thriving cocoa economy of the Central Range led planters to petition the colonial government for a railway line since the only communication was by an almost impassable bridle path. The authorities extended a railway line south of Jerningham Junction in Cunupia in the 1890s which bisected Tabaquite and Flanagin Town. Part of this line boasted a railway tunnel which when commissioned in 1898 was named after then acting governor, C C Knollys. 

Tabaquite was described by H Marshall in 1911 as follows:

“Up to now we had been travelling over flat country ever since leaving Port-of-Spain, but on approaching the end of our journey where we passed through the only tunnel on the line, we had reached the spurs of the Montserrat Hills, at the foot of which lies the little settlement of Tabaquite. Near the railway line there was a good track, on the far side of which were three or four stores at intervals from each other, a few cottages of the poorer class were within sight, and the rest was bush, forest, or whatever else one might choose to call the surrounding foliage.”

It was this railway line and the immediate advantages it provided that was to prove instrumental to the area’s place in oil history. The Duckham syndicate investigated seepages of a light crude in the cocoa woods near Tabaquite around 1906 and determined that there was enough evidence of petroleum to warrant further investment of resources in the area. 

Next week, we will look at what happened to Duckham and his exploration for oil.

“I don’t want my daughter hustling like how I hustling right now. I wish she comes out better than the way I is right now,” says a rugged, lean, tattooed  teenager called Daryll Paponet, who earns his living as a waste picker at the toxic Guanapo Landfill. He’s one of many men who leap on trucks and scavenge useful dumped items to resell; it’s a tough life.

He’s gutsy and determined, yet you can hear a sadness in his voice. He’s barely out of his own boy days.

Paponet is one of several spirited people featured in A Better Place, an inspiring one-hour documentary film marrying good local music and sensitive visual storytelling with five recent community projects across T&T. 

Produced by Carver Bacchus in 2015, directed by Miquel Galofre, and scripted by Andre Bagoo, A Better Place covers five separate environmental-related community projects while also showcasing five local musical acts. It is a soulful merging of music, film and sustainability issues in T&T communities facing various challenges.

The stories are full of optimism, hope, and real-world practical small projects which far too few of us have even heard about. They point the way to future possible projects unique to the needs of different communities here—if communities take the initiative.

The projects in the film demonstrate that with some good ideas, teamwork, and a little funding, self-help can become a reality rather than just a nice idea. 

Along the way, the film gives us keen if brief glimpses of some people’s lives. There's the grizzled old dump scavenger addicted to cocaine, who wistfully dreams of a better life; there are strong women from Guanapo, close to nature but seeking better livelihoods for their children in an area of few opportunities and amenities; and we see rural Tobago teenagers awed by the wonders of their own undersea world which they are seeing for the very first time, even though they’ve lived in Tobago all their lives.

Successful past projects

The film features an aquaponics project in Guanapo; a marine conservation education programme by ERIC (the Environmental Research Institute Charlotteville) in Tobago; the ClimaQuest board game on climate change invented at the Parvati Girls Hindu College in Debe;  a Nature Seekers project to reduce the alarmingly high, daily turtle deaths from fishing net bycatch in Matura; and a paper recycling project to empower and educate disabled children in San Fernando.

All the projects in A Better Place were supported by funds from the UNDP’s GEF Small Grants Programme. Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Small Grants Programme provides grants of up to US$50,000 directly to local communities for projects with environmental impacts on specific issues, namely biodiversity; climate change mitigation and adaptation; land degradation and sustainable forest management; and international waters and chemicals.

Not many communities, though, are even aware of the Small Grants Programme. And too many people seem either intimidated by the idea of applying for a grant (they needn’t be; help exists for that), or seem to lack the drive and commitment to follow through on their own project ideas, perhaps itself a reflection of fragmented communities lacking the capacity to manage projects, even small ones.

Carver Bacchus aims to change this, and in between his other communications duties, he has been on the road to different communities since May, holding workshops and screening the film A Better Place in order to show communities what is possible. He’s doing this outreach work through his non-profit enterprise, Sustain T&T, which has already completed four workshops (in San Fernando, Santa Cruz, the St Ann’s hills and Success Laventille); the last ones will take place at UWI, St Augustine, and possibly Tobago. All workshops are free and open to anyone interested.

Carver Bacchus is a quiet, articulate man with 15 years of marketing, advertising and management experience. With a BSc in Communications and a subsequent Diploma in Motion Picture Directing, he founded the non-profit enterprise Sustain T&T in mid-2010 to inform and educate on sustainable and green activities. Among other things, Sustain T&T helps to make and show educational films on environment and sustainability, with its signature event being the annual Green Screen film shows.

Celebrating people—and hope

In a recent T&T Guardian interview at his St Clair workspace, Bacchus said the film A Better Place is a vehicle to not only promote environmental projects of the GEP Small Grants Programme, but also to help people connect, understand some issues, feel pride in their own possibilities, and celebrate people in T&T who have been quietly doing some very good things indeed.

“We started pre-production of A Better Place at the end of 2014; by March 2015 we were into production. The most challenging thing was deciding which projects to highlight from among the dozens of projects supported by GEF over the years...Also, we wanted to reflect a diversity of places and communities,” said Bacchus. He emphasised: 

“It’s not just about environmental projects; it’s also about the personal side of things: why are people doing what they’re doing? Who’s around them, who’s supporting them? One question we asked everyone was: How do you think we could make T&T a better place? We got so many different answers; some hopeful, some pessimistic.”

Bacchus said the talents of several unique, good local artists and musicians added to the five-part, one-hour film, helping it connect creatively and emotionally with local audiences while celebrating local talent. There were music performances by Ruth Osman (with Anders Kappel Ovre on guitar),  Gillian Moore (with Shiva Mannick on tabla), Freetown Collective, Solman, Black Loyalty (with Sadiki Philips on guitar), and Pol Dunyo.

Evoked memorably in the literature of Earl Lovelace (The Dragon Can't Dance), Laventille East/Morvant is a place famous for its musical creativity and innovation, survival and community. 

Gang culture and crime afflicting some parts is a minority subculture of the area, where many families live and thrive against sometimes stiff odds. And rather than the stereotype of a concrete jungle, there are some spaces that are remarkably green, if you know where to look for them. Laventille East/Morvant MP Adrian Leonce wants to see these spaces expand.

The name Laventille has been used as a general term for the neighbourhoods of eastern Port-of-Spain, including not only Laventille “proper” (Success Village, Trou Macaque, Never Dirty) but also East Dry River, John-John, Sea Lots, Beetham Estate Gardens, Caledonia, Maryland, Mon Repos, Chinapoo and Morvant.

Businessman Adrian Leonce was born and grew up in the Morvant-Laventille area—he says his “backyard” was Never Dirty, and his street was Pitch Road, where he'd happily play small-goal football with a team called Fire.

 The dreadlocked, affable young MP for Laventille East/Morvant still thinks of it as home, even though he’s had a home elsewhere in the country for some years now. His parents, siblings and many friends all live in Morvant-Laventille, and he himself spends much time there.

Leonce is a UWI engineering graduate with a Masters in Mechanical Engineering who, with his father, founded the community-based firm Leonce Innovations Co Ltd in 2007 in Movant/Laventille. Committed to helping his community, Leonce’s firm employs young people there, while he, as an MP, is always looking for other practical ways to help.

One of these ways could be through small self-help projects for which some funding exists through the UNDP’s GEF Small Grants Programme. Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Small Grants Programme (SGP) provides grants of up to US$50,000 directly to local communities for projects with environmental impacts on specific issues, namely biodiversity; climate change mitigation and adaptation; land degradation and sustainable forest management; and international waters and chemicals.

The SGP so far has supported more than 20,000 projects in 125 countries.

After listening to Sustain T&T’s presentation in Laventille last month on June 11, and viewing the film A Better Place which showed past successful community projects done in T&T through the GEF SGP, Leonce pledged his support for green initiatives and says he’s looking forward to opportunities for potential projects in his own constituency. 

Sustain T&T is a non-profit organisation run by film producer and communications professional Carver Bacchus which helps to make and show educational films on environment and sustainability. Carver Bacchus produced the film A Better Place which he has been showing to different communities in the past few months, both to show communities what has been done right here in T&T as well as to inspire them to create their own projects.

Among possible ideas for Laventille East/Morvant small projects, Bacchus said some community members have already suggested at least one: to possibly regularise the scavenging at the Beetham dump by building a structure there to facilitate recycling, legitimising people who have long worked the dump.

Bacchus suggests projects can also be based in existing strong institutions in the community, such as schools and community centres, as a measure to “leverage safer spaces” to protect from crime in the area during projects, as well as spaces that because of their established nature, can help projects have a longer life and a wider reach. 

In primary and secondary schools, for instance, projects could develop “green attitudes, green technologies, and an understanding of sustainability.”

And why not make some of these schools green schools, he suggested, helping them be able to pay for some of their own energy and other needs through photovoltaic (solar) panels, green roofs, rainwater harvesting, kitchen gardens and other measures? Materials could also be recycled to make new play parks, he suggested.

MP Adrian Leonce, speaking in an interview at the T&T Guardian’s Chaguanas office last week, said he has two initial ideas he’d like to see develop.

In Morvant specifically, he noted, there are several natural springs. Many years ago, villagers built small reservoirs at these springs, and used the stored water to help service the community. Over the years, however, these reservoirs have broken down and stopped working. Leonce would like to see the reservoirs rebuilt.

“There is a spring in Mon Repos, in a small village called The Cocoa, and another spring in Never Dirty, those are two areas where the villagers benefitted from natural springs, but because of failing infrastructure, the communities aren't benefitting anymore,” Leonce said.

There is definitely a problem of reliable pipe-borne water supply in some areas of Morvant-Laventille, says Leonce, explaining that as many unplanned communities sprang up in the area, infrastructural work was provided in a piecemeal way, and often was not planned to service the size of later demands, leading to problems like water pressure loss in some areas, and a total lack of water supply in other areas.

Leonce said there is now a planning process on upgrading infrastructure happening; but in the meanwhile, separately from this process, any community-based reservoir project based on the area's own natural streams would certainly help some people.

A second project Leonce sees as both possible and important is developing food projects through kitchen gardens, greenhouses, and other avenues, to both feed people and teach a whole new generation who have forgotten the lessons of sustainability of their grandparents. 

Many have lost the tradition of growing their own food. Many have also forgotten what it means to be a citizen, to be responsible, productive and an active participant in building a better place, said Leonce.

“We want the children to become leaders, to be patriotic to the country, to be aware of what their role is in developing the country. While we were growing up, there were certain things that we benefited from, that now the young children just don't have.”

“A lot of initiatives I am pursuing are based on memories of the past. We had it, and we lost it. The idea of having your own kitchen garden, or gardens in community spaces, is one. When we were growing up, literally everybody had a kitchen garden, or kept chickens.” He says the idea of community gardens is already alive in Laventille East/Morvant: 

“There is one building that we call the Nine Storeys because it is nine storeys high, on Almond Drive. The residents there, spearheaded by one particular resident, have a space where they grow vegetables and food crops.” They grow tomato, cabbage, sweet peppers and seasoning herbs. 

Leonce would like to see this idea made bigger: larger scale gardens, perhaps involving a community greenhouse, where youth can “receive education, understand agriculture and crop cycles, learn how you can mix cash crops with other crops, and understand the financial benefit of agriculture. And also understand how we can consistently feed the community.” 

The idea is to develop this approach though more community spaces in other high-rise residential areas, he said, commenting: 

“We have become a country that is so dependent on external sources. You always hear people complaining about the dependency syndrome. To break out of that culture, the key is getting children and young people to develop a culture of self-sufficiency. Children can encourage the parents and the community to do positive things.”

MORE INFO
GEF Small Grants Programme
United Nations Development Programme
Address: UN House, 3a Chancery Lane,
Port-of-Spain, T&T
Email: registry.tt@undp.org
Phone: 1-868-623-7056

What is the GEF Small Grants Programme?
The Programme provides grants of up to US$50,000 directly to non-profit civil society organisations such as community-based organisations and non-profit groups for projects in: Biodiversity, Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, Land Degradation and Sustainable Forest Management, International Waters and Chemicals. 

The programme is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on behalf of the GEF partnership, and executed by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

More info:https://sgp.undp.org/www.tt.undp.org
https://www.facebook.com/GEFSGPTT

The moment of capitulation is recorded in a digital file. It was 11.47 pm on the night of February 17, 2012 when Calypso Rose, wearing a gold tiara and yellow suit to support Machel Montano at the National Soca Monarch Finals, turned around to give a signature shake of her bum to the cheering audience.

I zoomed in, and there, in a neat row of eight squares, under a calligraphic text treatment of the words “Legends of Calypso,” were six of my photographs of veteran calypsonians. So here’s the conundrum.

Do I collar the Calypso Queen of the World as she leaves the stage, an old woman exhausted from her romp under stagelights with a man half her age to demand my right and due?

Do I call David Rudder to badger him about how the photographs I did for his veterans of calypso tour two decades ago ended up badly reproduced on the back of one of the most admirable women working in the realm of calypso?

I will, from time to time, engage people who have erred on the off-chance that they might have genuinely acted in ignorance in making use of an image without seeking permission. 

That usually doesn’t go particularly well, as you will discover from this online record of a 2013 chat discussion (http://ow.ly/QBS13026nGJ).

There are occasions, however, when it seems sensible to do a bit more than that, particularly when the infringement takes place at a media house that should know better. Two weeks ago, the BBC posted an interview with the master Carnival artist Peter Minshall to their Outlook web presence.

Since nobody pays attention to audio files anymore, it’s become a requirement to create a video track to accompany the sound. My photo of Mr Minshall was not only used without permission for that purpose on the audio clip, it was credited to someone else entirely.

This is what I wrote to various contact points at the BBC. I note with considerable dismay the use being made by the BBC of my copyrighted photograph of the Carnival designer Peter Minshall on Outlook (http://ow.ly/w6Cj3026pD3). 

I further note the Facebook chat conversation that T&T journalist Jabari Fraser began with me on June 22, notifying me of your interest in making use of the photograph. 

From this, I can deduce the following. 

That you knew who the true author of the image was. 

That for reasons I am unaware of, you simply chose to proceed with using the image despite having no discussion whatsoever with me about its use. 

You further published the audio online as a video file using the still photo as its visual component for its full duration.  

That image has also been miscredited to Dalton Narine—who holds a limited license to use it as publicity material for his film about Mr Minshall and cannot sublicense or distribute it—despite your knowledge that he was not the author.  

I do not want the image removed. 

That ship has already sailed. 

All of the potential value has already been squeezed out of the photo, and I have no interest in conversations about used food, or more specifically, well-exploited content. Any potential value to me which might have been associated with a properly credited image has also been wrung out of an online post that’s now days old. 

The BBC has significantly benefited, unfairly and in casual contravention of copyright law, from my intellectual property.  

I now expect a proposal of payment from the BBC which makes good on this injustice by fairly acknowledging the theft of my property, the value of the views and shares that the post has earned, the stripping of my right to be identified as the author and the added, damaging substitution of another creative person's identity in its place.  

I do not want to have a discussion about this. The time for that was before a decision was made to steal my work.  

This will be my only communication with you on this matter.  

Should you and the BBC fail to respond appropriately; I must explore other options to defend my intellectual property.” 

Was this arrogant and out of place? When the relative sizes of our businesses are compared, almost certainly. But I’ve found that it’s better for my bottom line to be the a**hole who fusses about his work and is generally troublesome about rights and licensing than it is to be the cool dude who’s okay with everyone taking his creative product for free. 

The matter has since been settled. To their credit, the BBC opened a case file for the matter and I’ve been contacted by multiple people to ensure that our mutual understanding of the conclusion of the matter is clear to everyone involved.

I cannot begin to explain how rare this is. I’ve gone, in a single week from blazing red of eye and slavering to admiring the process by which this was handled.

Am I happy? Not really. I’m mollified by apology and a pittance as I reload for future engagements.

The Caribbean Kids and Families Therapy Organisation (CKFTO), in partnership with the Digicel Foundation, recently took their workshop on Puberty, Sex and Sexuality over to the special needs community in Tobago.

Thus far, the series, which is being implemented across T&T, has been very successful and well-attended. A release said, in Tobago many parents caring for children with a range of cognitive disabilities received guidance on how to discuss matters pertaining to puberty, the basics of sexuality, social boundaries, privacy and distinguishing the difference between good touch versus bad touch.

CKFTO, in partnership with the Digicel Foundation, has already conducted 11 workshop sessions since the initiative began. The recent session in Tobago, which took place at the Happy Haven School in Signal Hill, was led by educational psychologist Toni Betaudier. 

During the session two participants in particular stood out to CKFTO and the Digicel Foundation: Kericia Lawrence and Elroy Arthur. 

Arthur, a single parent and the only male guardian present, posed critical questions to the specialist regarding his daughter with special needs. 

Both Lawrence and Arthur were presented with hampers from Digicel Foundation project specialist Andrew Frection and educational psychologist Toni Betaudier for their engaged interest in the workshop. 

Children with Down Syndrome and other disabilities have skills, passion and the ability to accomplish great things like anyone else and must be encouraged to do so.

This inspirational message was shared by Glen Niles, founder and president of the Down Syndrome Family Network, when he opened an awareness workshop for parents, families, caregivers, teachers and others who live and work with people with Down Syndrome.

A release said scores of families and their children attended the workshop at Valsayn Teachers’ Training College, on June 25, as the Down Syndrome Family Network addressed critical issues and provided valuable information about Down Syndrome, as well as demonstrated their potential.

Niles, who founded the network five years ago, thanked the RBC Royal Bank Education Foundation for partnering with the organisation to fund a series of workshops which are aimed at generating better understanding of Down Syndrome and helping parents and others demonstrate that their children can accomplish great things.

“As parents with kids with disabilities, people keep telling us what they will not be able to do. They kill your dreams and poison your thoughts and aspirations for your kids. People with Down Syndrome have skills and passion, too. We have to build the dream with our kids.

“We have to believe that they can accomplish great things like anyone else. We have to change our perspective on what a child with Down Syndrome can do and let them go out in the world and do it,” said an emotional Niles, whose son has Down Syndrome.

Underscoring RBC Royal Bank’s support of the work of the Down Syndrome Family Network was Trincity branch manager, Kevin Doodnath, who informed the audience that the network’s focus on youth development and empowerment, while being a champion of diversity, was aligned with RBC’s own commitment and focus on youth, diversity and inclusion.

“People with Down Syndrome deserve to have choices, make decisions and have control of their lives, the things that most of us take for granted. To do this, they need access to the support they may require to lead independent lives and to be accepted and included as valued, equal and participating members of their communities,” Doodnath pointed out.

The Down Syndrome Family Network is one of several non-governmental organisations to benefit recently from the RBC Royal Bank Education Foundation’s community outreach programme with donations amounting to $370,000.

Tobago-based Healing with Horses was assisted with its after school programme for disabled children from Happy Haven School, the Tec Voc Centre and the Tobago School for the Deaf.

Steven Edwards Productions received support for its Chrysalis Project which seeks to transform the lives of some 40 young people between the ages of five to 20 years in Beetham Gardens. The programme utilises theatre and technology to teach social and life skills and foster various competencies in the young residents in the community.

The Dyslexia Association received funding for its annual training programme for teachers from primary, secondary and private schools who are trained to recognise early signs of dyslexia in children. The programme also extends to offering counseling methods for parents and families.

RBC Royal Bank Education Foundation also funds the Arrow Foundation literacy programme with training of teachers in the use of the Arrow learning initiative at the St Phillip’s Government Primary School in Port-of-Spain.

The Royal Bank Education Foundation was established in 1977 to assist NGOs and community groups in the execution of programmes and initiatives that support the development of youth and education activities.

The Paragon Sports & Cultural Club deserves full marks for successfully staging last Saturday’s Seaside Jazz at its Cocorite venue. Aside from its late start, the event, piloted by radio personality Peter Kelly, ran smoothly through its three-hour duration.

Because it is not a walled premise, the Cocorite venue affords patrons the feel of an open-air showplace, cooled by the sea breeze off the Gulf of Paria and winds blowing along the Western Main Road. Saturday’s programme was opened by 17-year-old prodigy Luke Walker, a pan musician of CAL Invaders Steel Orchestra and National Panorama finalist for the past eight years.

A St Mary’s College Sixth Former, Walker’s set included September in the Rain (on keyboards), from the movie Melody for Two, and, accompanied by keyboardist Michael “Ming” Low Chew Tung, Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Kitchener’s Mas in May. Walker is the 2016 T&T Music Festival (North) champion in the pan and piano categories.

Some were surprised to see veteran musician Pelham Goddard take a supportive role, as Roots saxophonist was announced as the star of the next act. Aside from Goddard and Boyce, the ensemble included Javen Ochoa (guitar); Keshorn Jack (bass); and, Vonrick Maynard (drums). 

Boyce and band played Benny Golson’s Killer Joe, People Make the World Go ’Round and Duke Ellington’s In a Sentimental Mood, followed by vocalist Natalie Yorke rendering a soul-searching interpretation of Alfie, composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and made popular by Dionne Warwick, which she dedicated to the memory of late prime minister Patrick Manning. She also sang Anita Baker’s Rapture. Boyce again returned front and centre to play Michael Jackson’s Human Nature and Andre Tanker’s Steelband Time.

What could have been a perfect performance by the next act, Dane Gulston, was marred by some erratic sound engineering which sounded like a confrontation between the pan player and his accompanists. This was, however, rectified by the time Gulston began his second item, a Different Shade of Silver, his own composition. He followed this with another original, Aura.

Gulston, a veteran front line member of Massy Trinidad All Stars, played with gusto and much energy as he performed Teddy Pendergrass’ Somebody Loves You Back and the popular standard Take Five, made popular by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Encored, he played 5Star Akil’s Different Me and Voice’s Cheers To Life. To see Gulston interpret this medley was well worth the price of admission as he engaged patrons, jumping off the stage one time to dance with a woman in the front row.

A brief intermission was welcome after Gulston’s intense performance during which time the stage was set for the main act, Vaughnette Bigford. The diva of La Brea, elegant in her black, floor-length gown, accessorised in gold, was at her usual best, opening her set with Better Days. She then ventured into Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Mercy Me and Steelo David’s Can You Love Me? Kicking off her high heels to do the remainder of her repertoire barefooted, Bigford then did Bobby Caldwell’s What You Won’t Do.

It was at this point, with Paul doing a flute solo on the latter song, that music enthusiasts in the house must have started appreciating the fact that the calibre of musicians gracing the stage on the night were as outstanding as the headline acts. Aside from guitarist Theron Shaw and saxophonist Anthony Paul embellishing Bigford’s items with some fantastic solos, the night had already been enriched by keyboardists Goddard and Low Chew Tung, drummers Maynard and Carlon Alexander, and percussionist Tamba Gwinde in Gulston’s ensemble.

Shaw also stood out when he soloed during Bigford’s rendition of And the Lord Said. When she did Forget Regret, it was bassist Tony Alexander’s turn to stand out. Bigford’s treatment of Merchant’s Be Careful, with Paul soloing on sax, was a treat, as was her cover of Miriam Makeba’s Pata Pata, which brought some patrons to their feet. Many also sang this song’s refrain with gusto.

Bigford continued to endear herself to her captive audience when she dedicated her next item, Sparrow’s No Money No Love, to the men in the audience. Again she had the women singing along with her. To round off her highly entertaining one-hour long performance, Bigford closed her set with Carol Addison’s Born to Shine.

The Paragon people are well advised for the next edition of this production to also promote the musicians who will be accompanying the main acts. Given the excellence of this first attempt to stage a show of this nature, when word gets out about its high quality, for next year’s edition the promoters may have to include a shuttle service for patrons? 

With Trinbago Knight Riders (TKR) having no more games at the Queen’s Park Oval, local interest might be on the wane in the ongoing 2016 Hero CPL T20 cricket tournament. 

Like most cricket enthusiasts in the Caribbean and Guyana in South America, local fans are nightly glued to their television sets as live telecast of the games is beamed via CNC3. 

But while enthusiasm at venues in neighbouring countries seems to be on a high, it is obvious that T&T is the region’s trendsetter and leader in production and costumery. 

At the four games played at the Oval to kickstart the competition, television cameramen must have been mesmerised by the diverse variety of side attractions and costumed supporters at the venue, and challenged to select subjects to capture.

In addition to the rhythm sections, and the contingent from Siparia fielding former Olympian Ian “Frinty” Morris, there were the beautifully-costumed brand reps of Digicel, Carib Beer and El Dorado Rum; traditional Carnival characters; Granny (Nikki Crosby); Digicel’s Mr D; steelbands; fire-eaters; acrobats; dancers; and live performances by soca stars like Destra, Kees Dieffenthaller, Ravi B and Multi Symptom.

The main men of the CPL organisers may be having some regret about the brand girls’ acts, though. There was a stark difference between the brand reps from the other islands, and our T&T girls—after one viewing, the T&T choreography becomes mundane and limited...move to the left, move to the right and do a little knee-bent “wuk up.”

The organisers could have had the trainer for the past few years travel to the different Caricom territories to train them, with one choreographer coach them all, and also have someone vet the costumes the girls wear—if only for coordination and visual cohesion. 

The patron adjudged to be wearing the most-unique costume at each Hero CPL T20 cricket game wins US$500. While our neighbours might be trying to emulate the standards in costumery and masquerade set by T&T—and Barbados to a slightly lesser degree—a Bristol board mask and cardboard does not a costume make. 

These simplistic portrayals are the easiest way to win US$500, especially when there is easily no competition. In terms of the music, the Kensington Oval in Barbados comes closest to what the Oval offers. 

Home of the Tridents, Kensington has offered brass bands, one led by veteran comedian/calypsonian Mac Fingall, the Mosaic steelband and some beautifully costumed individuals, a couple of them reminiscent of the sartorially elegant King Dial.

Antigua is not on the roster for games this year, so viewers and fans there will be deprived of seeing the more recent clones of Gravy, the Caribbean’s most-celebrated costumed character at cricket.

In all fairness to our most northern neighbour, the first game in Jamaica will be played today (Friday 15) so one cannot yet adjudicate the production quality of events there, when Tallawahs play Guyana’s Amazon Warriors. 

What’s certain is that reggae music—that has so far dominated music at venues outside of Trinidad—will be playing. It would be interesting to see what the people of St Lucia and Fort Lauderdale, USA will produce when games are played there later in the tournament. 

Cricket at this level is new to the United States. The excitement and fun would be that much poorer at Fort Lauderdale as venue negotiations to have a Triniposse Stand there fell through. 

(Photos courtesy Triniposse)

Bombarded by a torrent of toxic and negative news in media about the current state and future of our nation, we citizens need to take some time out, take a deep breath and recognise and applaud the positives so many of our nation’s youth have been achieving. 

Young nationals continue to achieve great things on the global stage; achievements which go unnoticed by most and in which we must be very proud and applaud. 

The young musicians of Exocubs Steel Orchestra (youth arm of Republic Bank Exodus) recently returned home after winning standing ovations and critical acclaim for their performances in Argentina. 

Their counterparts of Valley Harps Steel Orchestra of Petit Valley are currently winding down a concert tour of France.

The St Margaret’s Youth Steel Orchestra also continues to fly the cultural flag of T&T very high as they show us and the world the great invention that is the steelpan. They will be staging their Ninth Annual Youth Steelband Extravaganza tomorrow at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain, starting at 2 pm.

The orchestra’s Musical/Events co-ordinator, Rosemarie Abraham, said this week: “In our continued quest to develop our youths holistically through the medium of the steelpan, we of the St Margaret’s Youth Steel Orchestra have embarked on a pan programme which has been quite successful. 

“In addition to our orchestra, which recently performed successfully at Carnegie Hall and Universal Studios, Orlando, there will also be performances by BP Renegades Youth Steel Orchestra (non-school National Panorama champion); Success Stars Pan Sounds; MHTL Starlift Juniors and Massy Trinidad All Stars Youth Steel Orchestra.” 

Starlift and Trinidad All Stars Youth Steel Orchestras are the two newcomers in the line-up this year.

Fresh from a standing ovation at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan in June 2015 and from tremendous success at the Orlando Spring Music Festival at Universal Studios in April 2016, these talented young musicians will again showcase their pan wizardry at the Extravaganza.  

The St Margaret’s Youth Steelband Extravaganza offers youth steel orchestras who do well in the National Junior Panorama competition the opportunity to perform at a standard of excellence in a non-competitive atmosphere. 

This helps to foster camaraderie among the players of the various steelbands, a camaraderie which it’s hoped will continue to exist even when they are adult players in competing steel orchestras.

Performing will be the various age-group ensembles of the St Margaret’s Boys AC Primary School. The school has a very dynamic steelpan programme which was started in 2002 by Abraham and which continues today with strong support from the principal Collette Perez. 

The school placed second in the Primary School Category of the National Junior Panorama 2016 and emerged winners in the Elementary Schools category at the Orlando Spring Music Festival. 

These skilled young musicians do not just play the steelpan, they deliver a wide repertoire of music and exciting, exhilarating performances full of appropriate, dynamic and well-rehearsed choreography. 

By attending the Extravaganza, not only will you enjoy mesmerising music by these young, talented steelpan players, you will also be supporting this fund-raiser to assist St Margaret’s Youth Steel Orchestra to accept their invitations to Los Angeles, USA and Calgary, Canada in 2017.

Not to be outdone, the young women of Bishop Anstey High School again achieved excellence when the school’s choir and steelband were again victorious in the just concluded Llangollen Music Festival in Wales, open to school choirs and orchestras from across the globe.

Valdeen Shears-Neptune

With the death toll constantly on the rise and crime occurring daily in and outside the capital city, Port-of-Spain, a group of people have decided to mobilise children as part of an intervention to bring about change.

The initiative, themed A Strong Nation, is being facilitated through the Light on the Hill Ministries, Laventille, and was co-ordinated by a trio of women—well-known Port-of-Spain businesswoman Arlene Collins-Mohammed, along with Anica Patrick and Leah Edwards, who spent time on July 2 gathering children from areas around the capital deemed crime hot spots.

During the last week in June, the women trekked across streets such as Nelson, Duncan, George and Mango Rose, which, according to news reports, have been warring. 

Their mission: to seek the consent of the parents of these areas for them to allow their children between the ages five to 14 to attend an event which will continue every Saturday at Aaliyah’s Mall, between 3 and 5 pm. 

And while the event focuses heavily on the spiritual well-being of the children, Collins-Mohammed said the aim was to foster sustainable unity.

“We truly believe that children can use positive influences to change the mindsets and hearts of adults. This was one year in the making, but it is well worth it if helps in bringing about unity and restoring true community spirit amongst people that live streets away from each other,” Collins-Mohammed said. 

The intention, they said, is to have the children return to their respective homes with positive news to foster unity and transform any negative cultural influences. 

On July 2, curious spectators in downtown Port-of-Spain looked on and murmured approvingly as the children, holding hands, were safely guided across to Charlotte and Queen Streets to Aaliyah's Mall. 

There, they took part in fun activities including games and were treated to a variety of refreshments. The women have also taken on the responsibility to return the children safely to their homes every week.

Patrick said they chose a personal approach because they understood the sensitivity of both their mission and the mindset of the parents who, in some cases, by just their environment, were caught in the middle.

The event ended just as it begun, with the trio holding the hands of the young children who were armed with gifts and smiling as they made their way back to their respective homes.

Reeanna Harrilal, despite feeling ill and experiencing swelling on various parts of her body, was still willing to drag herself out of bed to talk to the Sunday Guardian about Lupus. It is a testimony of the passion and commitment she has for sharing information about the disease.

It’s what Harrilal has dedicated her life to since being diagnosed with Lupus at 23 years old. She spends time educating the public about Lupus and providing emotional and financial support to people diagnosed with the disease in T&T.

“Lupus is very prominent. I talk to the doctors and they say there is a rise in the number of people being screened for the disease.

“I’ve also met hundreds of people with the disease, both in Trinidad and in Tobago.”

Harrilal knew nothing about Lupus when she first found out she had the disease.

“I went to the library and looked in the encyclopedia and looked for L and when I found Lupus I was scared because it said people only lived about two or three years, anything before that was miraculous.”

“The symptoms of Lupus was there for a while before I was diagnosed. We just kept thinking it was my asthma, but then pain, fever, photosensitivity and blue and black marks on my skin.”

Today Harrilal knows a lot more, and through her charity Voice of Lupus, she goes to malls, supermarkets and busy public spaces to share her knowledge.

“I want my organisation to be a pillar of strength for people living with the disease.”

Her organisation has about 70 members across both islands. Over the past six years that the organisation has been in existence, Harrilal said she has interacted with almost 2,000 Lupus patients. Of those nearly 2,000 patients, several have died, something she takes very personally.

“From last May to this May we lost over 100 patients. I always feel like I didn’t do enough.”

Despite the emotional hurt of working with Lupus patients, Harrilal is not deterred because of the progress she feels she has made in bringing awareness.

Last year, a representative of Voice of Lupus Chameraj Balgobin spoke to the United States Congress to lobby for funding for Lupus organisations and Harrilal attended an international conference on Lupus in Austria because the international body was aware of the work the group was doing. She said it wasn’t always an easy journey but the difficulties did not cause her commitment to waver.

“This morning I struggled to get out of bed and I was like come on, get up, drag that foot. I have no choice because the other alternative is a miserable one.” She said the society needed to be less discriminatory toward people with Lupus.

“I found it very difficult to get jobs, I’ve been able to do a few months of work but nobody wants to invest in a sick person.” She said it was even more difficult for people who had Lupus because they didn’t always look sick.

“About 85 per cent of Lupus patients don’t look sick and many employers don’t want to invest in them. 

“Today, I couldn’t get off my bed, I had so much pain that it was difficult to get off the bed. Most patients have similar stories where tasks as simple as brushing teeth become impossible.

“What employers see is that you are working in a job but look fine and when you call in the next day and say you can’t come in because you don’t feel well, they sometimes don’t believe us.

“That’s the discrimination. I’m not saying most patients can’t live a normal life but it is difficult when you don’t have the support of society.”

Harrilal has overcome a lot from suicide attempts and morphine addiction to severe depression.

“I don’t regret having Lupus because it molded me into the woman I am today and allowed me to live God’s divine purpose for my life. We are blessed and a blessing to others.”

The group passes on these blessings by providing literature on Lupus for health centres, awareness advocacy and impact action.

“Through the action we help patients financially, we provide, food clothing, medical supplies, wheelchairs, walking sticks, bandages and adult diapers. We had one patient, a child had to change bandages several times a day every day. It can be costly for the people who have the disease,” Harrilal said.

To meet these financial obligations, Harrilal operates from her home and finds creative ways to raise funds by selling hand bands, T-shirts and even having barbecues.

In November, the group will host a benefit concert called Rocking Purple for Lupus.

“It’s very hard especially when you don’t have the support with funding but we make it work because this is honestly what I consider my purpose, helping others understand and support people with this illness.”

More info
Anyone wishing to buy a T-shirt or donate to Voice of Lupus can contact Reeanna at 327-0220 or donate to Voice of Lupus through any RBC Branch to account number 11000000427337.

Avril Harry, RN, 
BSc Oncology Nursing
Pink Hibiscus Breast Health Specialist

Over the many weeks that we have been writing, one consistent theme is the fact that breast cancer is now viewed as a chronic condition rather than a life-threatening illness once caught early. This can be attributed to the advances in early diagnosis and more effective treatments. 

The reality remains that we know so much more now than we did 20 or 30 years ago. This, no doubt, is reflected in numerous studies that have been conducted and as such, the evidence continue to reflect that the long-term survival rates after a diagnosis of breast cancer are steadily rising. As clinicians we consider this extremely good news. 

Every woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer looks forward with great anticipation to finishing their breast cancer treatment and getting on with life. We are great advocates of this as these women resume careers, enjoy advancements, start families, and create new memories. 

However, for some women, the end of treatment can be a confusing or worrying time. Some people feel nervous or upset at the thought of no longer seeing members of their health care team regularly. Others feel worried about what the future holds. We have come to appreciate over the years that every woman’s journey is different. 

Whether you have finished breast cancer treatment—be it surgery, chemotherapy, radiation or taking hormonal therapy for breast cancer six days, six months or one year ago, after a cancer diagnosis and during the active phase of treatment, it is normal to feel depressed and anxious.

After all, side effects related to treatment can worsen your quality of life. But once treatment ends, most side effects go away and you can begin to feel like yourself again.

Your hair grows back a few months after chemo, your skin colour returns to normal for those who may have had radiation and of course, there’s less visits to the clinic. In addition, your loved ones and those who have supported you on this journey also find that their life returns to normal or very close to it. 

In the meantime, there are many things you can do to improve your well-being. Maintaining a healthy weight, eating a balanced diet, and getting regular exercise may also play a role in breast cancer survival. There are things you can do to help lower your risk of recurrence. 

If you are being treated with hormone therapy such tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors, taking the drugs as prescribed not only lowers the risk of the first cancer coming back but also lowers the risk of getting a second primary breast cancer. 

It’s important to note that after breast cancer treatment, most breast cancer survivors report having a good quality of life.

Conversations over the years with my patients who have completed treatment is that they didn’t think they would make it, but the care and support of family, friends and health care providers, and their innate positive self-motivation got them through it. So for those of you now starting the journey: Be positive, have faith, be strong.

Jazz musician Anthony “Tony Paul” Woodroffe gave his first solo show at the Kaiso Blues Cafe on July 10, showing an increased mastery of his craft and a more commanding stage presence, according to one patron who had seen Woodroffe perform previously.

Woodroffe performed at the cafe last month with calypso jazz band Elan Parle and he last performed solo two years ago.

Dressed in a black shirt, suit, tie and tennis sneakers, Woodroffe seemed intent on displaying all that he had learned over decades as a musician, from studying at the Leeds College of Music, and from an intensive five-day workshop in 2014 with Cuban sax legend Paquito D’Rivera. 

Backed up by four other musicians, he played the sax—soprano, alto and tenor—the flute, and a shaker. He sang at one point—putting his capable though not spectacular vocals to the standard You Don’t Know What Love Is—afterward jokingly reassuring the audience that he wasn’t going to sing again for the night. 

He also showed versatility in his set list. Starting off the evening with Coltrane and making his way to more upbeat pieces from Andy Narell, he allowed the musicians that shared the stage with him to shine. Pan player Natasha Jones, in particular, gave a number of crowd-pleasing solos. A solo from guitarist Theron Shaw also drew warm applause. Bass player Rodney Alexander gave a steady and notable performance, particularly on the climax to the band’s rendition of You Don’t Know. 

With keyboardist Michael Low Chew Tung and drummer Von Best, the band formed a tight, impressive unit, a team of musicians who clearly respect each other and have become used to and enjoy playing together. When singer Vaughnette Bigford took to the stage after the intermission, it capped a solid evening of entertainment. 

“I think it was a success,” Woodroffe said, assessing his return to solo performance. “I felt the band was really cohesive with some stellar playing by all. We had fun and some of the persons that attended the show said they enjoyed it immensely.”

“The next step is for me to continue refining my craft and keep putting out shows," he added.

Kaiso Blues Café (formerly Martin’s) seems to have come into its own as a performance space, with its high vaulted galvanized ceiling covered by a black foam coating which, owner and musical icon Carl Jacobs boasted, made for its high quality acoustics. Little spots of green light projected on the ceiling gave the feeling—somewhat—of being under the night sky. 

“The cafe is to promote local music and showcase local artists and entertainers, of which we have so many,” said Jacobs. “(There’s) so much talent that goes unnoticed. We feel it’s necessary that we do this because no one else is doing it.”

There’s a performance at the cafe every night except Monday and Wednesday. The offerings are varied, from spoken word to reggae.

“Every talent that is available on the planet,” said Jacobs.

Cacique-award winning playwright Eric Barry was in fine form at the second edition of the concert series Cool Nights with Gillian Moor on June 3. Barry had the audience in stitches as he performed at the Kaiso Blues Cafe on Woodford Street, Port-of-Spain.

His first piece was an excerpt from his upcoming work, The Five Foolish Friends in Shhh... It is Art, a continuation of his award-winning play series. While sitting on stage silently, a pre-recorded voice-over described the thoughts someone would have while watching his performance, wondering why he was shirtless, and why everybody was just watching him.

It went on to watch and label the people in the crowd, including the Black Widow, who was on her fourth husband, the “Free Ticket” lady, who only went to functions if she could get in free, and the man wearing the same clothes from last night's fete, among others. The most hilarious part of the piece was when Barry stepped off the stage to reveal he was the commentator.

Next, Barry performed Street Vendor, a riveting impression of a vendor selling food on the street during Carnival. Dressed as a woman in a wig and an apron, the character took the opportunity to provide a social commentary on Carnival, while chastising a woman who ends up peeing next to her stall. The skit ends with her trying to bribe a policeman she called to deal with the woman, after he asks for her nonexistent food badge.

I Want to Wine was another Carnival-themed piece from the point of view of a policeman who has to work on Carnival Tuesday instead of jumping in his chosen band. After holding out as long as he could, he finally yields to temptation when his woman and a posse of her friends wine on him. “Mih pants split, ah dong on de groung, ah wining!” The next morning, he's on the front page of the paper and being chastised by his bosses, but he's happy because “I get to wine!”

Finally, in Christmas Wine, Barry juxtaposed Christmas carols and soca music to note how Carnival comes earlier and earlier every year, eclipsing and corrupting traditional Christmas celebrations. “We making it a disgrace on the Big Man Birthday.”

All four pieces were well received by the crowd present, who joined in to laugh, cheer, jeer and sing in turn.

Before and after Barry's performance, the hostess of the show Gillian Moor entertained the audience in song. Her soulful voice gave new life to Pyramid Song by Radiohead. She went on to sing songs of her own composition, including Time We Go and Here For You. For Big Snake and Everything's All Right, Moor was joined onstage by Jon Ottway, who accompanied her guitar playing with a cajon drum. Moor also performed Blue Red Woman, Hold On Tight, Dance Until You Fly  and Let Love Be Free.

The next episode of Cool Nights with Gillian Moor will take place on July 22. 

More info: Call 750-4655.

Tabaquite, a sleepy cocoa belt village, in the early 1900s was to have a unique place in Trinidad’s oil history as well as British military history. 

A report forwarded to British industrialist Alexander Duckham from his geologist in Trinidad confirmed the presence of extensive oil deposits. This document gave Duckham the confidence he needed to capitalise a new company to the tune of 50,000 pounds sterling.

Trinidad Central Oilfields was the result in 1911 and leases were obtained for a large parcel of Crown lands in the Tabaquite area. The presence of the Brasso-Caparo line of the Trinidad Government Railway gave an added motivation to the oilmen.

Initial returns were positive and based on the reports sent, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, decided to convert the British Navy’s fleet from coal fuel to oil. There was no pipeline system at the Tabaquite operations and oil was directed from the wells through earthen drains into a large pit or sump.

Tabaquite wells produced much natural gas as well as light crude and in 1912, one of the wells ignited sending a flash flood of burning oil downhill. Five men who were monitoring the flow to the sump we killed when the flaming tide overtook them. Crude was initially exported in barrels using railway flatcars to Port-of-Spain where they were shipped to the Duckham’s plant in London for refining. 

In 1914 applications were made for a refinery at Tabaquite which was completed a year later. The plant distilled several grades of fuel for local consumption. Kerosene (also called ‘pitch oil’ since it was first distilled near the Pitch Lake) was made and this was an important product since, at the time, there was no electric power in the island outside of Port-of-Spain.  

The kerosene was packaged at a small cannery near the refinery and thus the commonly known “pitch-oil tin” came into use. A high grade of petrol was also manufactured which was retailed in metal drums in Port-of-Spain under the brand TRICENTROL. It was preferred by motorists since it left fewer carbon deposits on vehicle engine parts and thus reduced the need for cleaning of valves and cylinder heads. 

Problems began to crop up with the railway authorities regarding the requests from oilfield management for the use of large American 40-tonne tankers on its lines as opposed to the smaller ten-ton British ones that had been in service up to 1915. This combined with increased output led Trinidad Central Oilfields to pursue the shipping of oil from its own coastal port via a pipeline. Claxton Bay, over 20 miles to the southwest, was selected as the terminus and a series of massive iron tanks capable of storing more than 14 thousand tonnes of oil were constructed there. 

Even in the Unites States, there were no pipelines at the time of this length for transit of light crude which made the Tabaquite-Claxton Bay trajectory a world first. Over hills and flat lands it went and a portion rested on the sea bed at the terminus since there was not enough deep water to permit oil tankers to draw near the shore.

A long iron jetty, constructed in the 1880s for use of sugar estates, became the loading point for oil. The crude exported from Claxton Bay made its way to London where Alexander Duckham produced a superior grade of motor lubricant, as well as aviation spirit for the newly-formed Royal Air force which was formed near the end of World War I (1914-18). Such had been the importance of marine and aviation fuel from Duckham’s, that several visits from Admiralty officials were made to Trinidad in order to hasten supplies.  

Duckham himself was a keen pilot and one of the pioneers of aviation in Britain. 

Output at Tabaquite fell steeply in the years following 1919. This had been feared since the early days since the geological reports indicated the deposits were shallow in depth and easily drilled but not nearly as extensive as those in the southwest. Trinidad Central Oilfields had incorporated smaller oil leases in Guapo, Barrackpore and even Mayaro, but the pending exhaustion of the main Tabaquite field was imminent. 

In 1939 Trinidad Central Oilfields ceased to exist, with its remaining assets being acquired by United British Oilfelds Trinidad (UBOT). Alexander Duckham died in 1945 and the company he founded in 1899 managed to soldier on as a maker of lubricants until 1968 under his son Jack, when it was assimilated by BP and the Duckham’s brand vanished into history.

Animae Caribe, the first animation festival in the English-speaking Caribbean, was founded 15 years ago in T&T and has been growing since then in size and importance. 

Now a selection of films that had been shown at the festival over the years is being exhibited in Washington DC. It’s the first time Animae Caribe films are being displayed in a venue outside the Caribbean.

“It’s a fabulous opportunity for us,” says Animae Caribe founder Camille Selvon-Abrahams of the exhibition, now on at the IDB Cultural Center in DC.

The exhibition, called Caribbean in Motion: Improving Lives through Artistry and Animation, includes ten creations by animators from T&T, Jamaica and the Bahamas. They showcase a diversity of talent and ideas while at the same time being distinctly Caribbean.

Two films give a humourous look at working class life: Cabbie Chronicles—Drive Thru Drama by Trinidadians Alison Latchman, Anieph Latchman and Marlo Scott won the best Caribbean animation award at the 2010 Animae Caribe. And Vendor Rivalry by Jamaican Ansar Sattar won the festival’s most oustanding Caribbean animation award in 2009.

Dance of the Daring by Trinidadian Danielle Blaize is a silent introspective film that examines same sex relationships and the risks of being yourself in a world that pushes for conformity. The film won best regional student film at last year’s festival. 
Project Ninja Slippers by Trinidadian Makesi Aquan is an anime-like fantasy film.

The exhibition features two pieces from Trinidadian Wendell McShine, one of the most celebrated animators/artists in the Caribbean: A music video for 12 The Band’s song Prosper, which won the best use of animation in a music video in 2010 and Rainbow Hill, which won the award for the best T&T short that year. Both show McShine’s signature combination of collage, surrealism and illustration. 

The submissions from Bahamian Khia Poitier are gifs, flickering digital images. One of them, Alt/rs, is a triptych showing three black wet nurses from the early 20th century, one breastfeeding a white baby who turns into what looks like a pile of worms. The woman’s face is covered by a yellow circle.

The exhibition took two to three months to put together, said Selvon-Abrahams. She explained how she chose the films.

“I went through over the years the ones that had the most impact,” she said. In putting the exhibition together, she said, “we had to make sure it was expressing our Caribbean identity.”

Jonathan Goldman, curator at the IDB Cultural Center, explained the interest in an exhibition of Caribbean animation.

“The Cultural Center of the IDB has a long tradition of bringing the art of the Americas to Washington,” he said via email.  “We have developed this exhibit to not only highlight the demand for animation in the world and the economics behind it, but also the social, cultural, and artistic
contributions Caribbean animators have already been making and could continue to make.”

Selvon-Abrahams was invited to help organise the exhibition at a point of uncertainty for her career and the festival. She had just been acrimoniously and—she said—unfairly fired last year as head of the animation programme at the University of Trinidad & Tobago. The UTT Port-of-Spain campus and its animation students were important to the festival.

“I kind of put it aside,” she said of the invitation, “because I was dealing with the emotions of all the things that were happening. I got a call like a month after, saying they still wanted to do this.

 “As soon as I kind of pulled myself together, I realised the huge impact this will have on the industry and I pushed forward to make it happen,” she said.

The response from viewers has been good so far, she said.

“The feedback we’ve had is that people are blown away by the level of professional animation coming out of the Caribbean,” she said. “So much so that there’s been requests for us to take it to the Bahamas, to Jamaica and possibly Maimi.”

Animae Caribe came off last year, smaller than usual, at alternative venues.

“I was determined to make sure that Animae Caribe happened so that we could show people that it was sustainable even without space and academic support,” she said, “that this will continue because of the power of young people who want to make it happen.”

Animae Caribe doesn’t yet have a venue for this year. But Selvon Abrahams plans to take it to Tobago—Castara to be exact—over the last two days in an attempt to weave tourism into the experience.

“The animation will literally be taking over the Castara community—in the rum shops, in the community centers, at the beach,” she said.

The DC exhibition gives a major boost just in time for the festival’s anniversary. Selvon Abrahams plans to bring it to T&T. She recalled saying at the closing ceremony of the festival last year that she wanted it to make “some tangible movements” in its 15th year.

The exhibition, she said, “was one of many outcomes that I thought,’OK, we’re making a dent.’”

The Caribbean in Motion exhibition runs until July 29. Animae Caribe will run from October 24 to 30. 

The celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of Gene Roddenberry’s little space cowboy television show, Star Trek, have begun a bit early. 

The first episode of Star Trek, now known as The Original Series or TOS, aired just over three weeks from this date on September 8, 1966.

It’s all in support of the release of the latest film in the franchise, the hopefully titled Star Trek Beyond, a film that early buzz suggests is the least TOS-like of all the incarnations of fiction involving people named Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

This is a Star Trek film with it’s own theme song; an Adele-esque turn by Rihanna on a sweeping little ditty called Sledgehammer.

It should have escaped nobody’s notice that the enthusiastic JJ Abrams reboot of the franchise was a huge hit, the daringly time-tossed Star Trek (2009) starring an all-new cast assaying roles first brought to the big screen 30 years earlier in the painfully slow Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

The original series, starring an alarmingly young William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley stumbled along for its three-year run, virtually collapsing under the weight of poor scripts in its third season.

The show would also be the proving ground for the potential of syndication, the relicensing of creative content for reuse in multiple markets, which Paramount (who had bought the series from original producers Desilu – yes, we owe Kirk and Spock to I Love Lucy), explored with increasing success. CBS now owns the right to the brand, and is developing a new television series while Paramount retains the right to make films using the brand.

The series was first revived as Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973, winning an Emmy Award for Best Series, using then state-of-the-art cel animation.

The first film, riding the unquenchable thirst stoked by continuous global syndication, arrived in 1979, a deeply flawed effort to expand a 45-minute concept into a 132 minute movie.

Paramount pushed series creator Roddenberry aside for its sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), which under the steady, capable hands of director Nicholas Meyer, became not only the strongest entry in the original series’ film catalog, it was mined liberally for the cloned underpinnings of 2013’s largely disappointing and ham-handed Star Trek: Into Darkness.

In television, Paramount has had varying success with its efforts to introduce a new cast and crew to the Enterprise and in expanding the well-populated universe that Gene Roddenberry envisioned.

The best of them, Star Trek: Next Generation (1987), dumped the crew entirely and introduced a newer, sleeker ship launched under the Enterprise name and a complex and engaging captain, Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard.

Deep Space Nine (1993) suffered the Stalag 13 curse, binding its cast to an orbiting space station and requiring all of space to come to them. DS9 benefited from the bold presence of Avery Brooks as Station Commander Benjamin Sisko and in its last two seasons, finally did a bit of spacefaring.

Voyager (1995), delivered an adult version of Lost in Space, largely descending into an endless cycle of weekly aliens while losing the opportunity to explore, with a much larger budget, the original premise of TOS’ five-year mission of exploration.

Star Trek on television would end on an ignominious note of lost opportunity with Enterprise (2001), a series that began quite hopefully, detailing the earliest days of space exploration in Mr Roddenberry’s halcyon future of rocketry, but quickly lost its way. 

The final season was wrestled back on course, but too late to save a series wounded by the lack of a coherent vision for its cast and storytelling.

Scattered among the hundreds of hours of storytelling and performance that represent the 50-year legacy of Star Trek are some remarkable, truly memorable moments along with some gaffes of epic proportions, but the series that began it all in September 1966 has always managed to be, at its best, both inspirational and aspirational.

It’s celebration of largely imagined but impressively considered hard science was capably buffered by an emphasis on the importance of a unified humanity in the face of an unfathomable unknown couched in the neutral ruthlessness of open space.

To look now at the clunky sets of TOS, the flimsy furniture, the miniskirts (never a bad idea) and the communicators, an item designed for the far future that already looks antique, is to hope that the young viewers of Star Trek Beyond live into a future that makes the slick super-modernity of this year’s Trek film commonplace and perhaps, even a little dated in another 50 years.

Sagicor Life Inc has extended its well wishes to the national winners of the Sagicor Visionaries Challenge, Five Rivers Secondary School. Team leader, Selina De Souza, and the supervising teacher, Jeanette Browne, went to Tampa on an all-expense paid, seven-day Stem Ambassador Programme from July 10 to 16. 

While in Tampa, De Souza and Browne, along with other national winners from around the region, participated in design thinking, prototyping, and digital fabrication workshops, as well as a guided tour of the Kennedy Space Center. Their Tampa experience ended with a visit to the University of South Florida labs and the announcement of the regional winner.

This year, for the second time in a row, Five Rivers Secondary walked away as national winners of the Sagicor Visionaries Challenge with their Project Eco-Clean, a release said. The project team’s main objective was to create environmentally-friendly by-products from used cooking oil, and to encourage households, schools, communities and fast food outlets to adopt this efficient method for the disposal of used cooking oil. 

In 2014, Five Rivers Secondary copped the title with Cardboard Box Pellet–A Recycling Project. The project aimed to reduce Trinidad and Tobago’s carbon footprint by providing an efficient alternative to the waste disposal system and to create a useful, sustainable by-product from the discarded cardboard breakfast boxes at their school.

As national winners, the team received a Caribbean Science Foundation computerised mobile science and technology centre (Vernier system); six microscience kits; GoPro cameras; Samsung smartwatches and US$1,000 for the school.  

The Sagicor Visionaries Challenge is a yearly regional competition in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, St Lucia, Tampa (Hillsborough County) and T&T. It is a collaboration between the Caribbean Examination Council and the Caribbean Science Foundation that seeks to boost institutional capacity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) in secondary schools and provide students with a practical, hands-on approach to solving some of the problems facing their communities. 

The aim of the Challenge is to encourage secondary school students to develop effective, innovative and sustainable solutions to the challenges facing their communities or schools. 

This corporate social responsibility initiative is intended to stimulate national awareness and excitement among students, teachers and parents as we seek to enable tomorrow’s leaders to build a more sustainable Caribbean.

This fall, the inaugural Third Horizon Caribbean Film Festival will be held in Miami, bringing the best in film from the Caribbean and its diaspora to South Florida, thanks to the support of the John S and James L Knight Foundation. The festival will take place from September 29 to October 2 at O Cinema Wynwood in Miami.  

A release said the festival will feature a curated slate of Caribbean feature films, and has announced a call for submissions for short films by Caribbean filmmakers and/or about the region and its diaspora. Films can be submitted via thirdhorizonfilmfestival.com. 

For centuries, the Caribbean has been a place where people from the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia have converged, and its stories are far richer and more nuanced than the tourist brochures indicate. 

As film production becomes less prohibitive and more democratic, a new generation of Caribbean filmmakers are seizing the moment to bring these stories to the screen. And with the current drive for diversity in film, the time has never been more ripe to share these stories with the world. 
The Third Horizon Caribbean Film Festival aims to celebrate and empower the filmmakers leading this charge. 

The festival was founded by Third Horizon, a Miami-based collective of Caribbean creatives whose first short film, Papa Machete, had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014. 

Third Horizon had its US premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015, before going on to screen at more than 30 film festivals worldwide. It is being staged in partnership with the Caribbean Film Academy, a Brooklyn-based not-for-profit organisation whose core mission is to support and distribute the work of Caribbean filmmakers. 

Sponsorship for the festival is also being provided by Flow, the leading telecommunications company in the Caribbean, and the Green Family Foundation, a private, non-profit organisation that provides funding and resources to organisations that support education, global health and community development. 

The festival had its genesis in 2014 when Third Horizon was one of the winners of the Knight Arts Challenge. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. 

• For more information, visit knightfoundation.org.