Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has urged cit­i­zens not to al­low them­selves to be con­sumed by hope­less­ness. She made the com­ment in the wake of a surge in mur­ders af­fect­ing the coun­try. The Pres­i­dent said that the steel­pan and the pa­n­yard mod­el of­fer a path for cit­i­zens to re­store their hope.

“This morn­ing, Trinidad and To­ba­go woke up to the news that there were 14 mur­ders, with some me­dia hous­es re­port­ing more than 15 over the week­end. In the teeth of such un­speak­able atroc­i­ty, the pa­n­yard mod­el af­fords us a dif­fer­ent re­flec­tion of our­selves; it shows us one path­way out of the dark­ness,” Kan­ga­loo said.

Kan­ga­loo was speak­ing at the launch of the Pres­i­dent’s Pan Camp at Pres­i­dent’s House yes­ter­day morn­ing. The camp will see 22 young peo­ple be­tween the ages of 12 and 21 learn how to play steel­pan and learn of its his­tor­i­cal and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance to the coun­try that birthed it.

Dur­ing the five-day ini­tia­tive, stu­dents will have morn­ing and af­ter­noon ses­sions, with the for­mer be­ing an in­struc­tion­al class to learn the steel­pan by some of the na­tion’s most tal­ent­ed and lead­ing pan mu­si­cians. The lat­ter, how­ev­er, will see 50 young peo­ple join­ing the 22 stu­dents to dis­cuss a range of so­cial, cul­tur­al, and per­son­al is­sues, led by pan pro­fes­sion­als and cul­tur­al icons. Some of the ed­u­ca­tors and men­tors who will be part of the Pres­i­dent’s Pan Camp 2024 are Jus­tice of Ap­peal Gillian Lucky; so­ca artiste Dr Machel Mon­tano; mu­si­cal di­rec­tor of T&TEC Trop­i­cal An­gel Harps Steel Or­ches­tra, Clarence Mor­ris; ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of First Cit­i­zens Su­per­novas Steel Or­ches­tra, Amit Sama­roo, and many oth­ers.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo and her hus­band, Ker­wyn Gar­cia, SC, said the project aims to show­case the po­ten­tial of the pa­n­yard mod­el as a force of pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment in the lives of young peo­ple to awak­en their in­tel­lec­tu­al, cul­tur­al, and artis­tic cu­rios­i­ty.

The camp is the re­al­i­sa­tion of an idea she re­vealed dur­ing her in­au­gur­al ad­dress as Pres­i­dent when she de­scribed the mod­el as one of the most ef­fec­tive youth delin­quen­cy pre­ven­tion pro­grammes and ad­vo­cat­ed for youth ini­tia­tives to be adopt­ed on a year-round ba­sis.

Al­so speak­ing yes­ter­day, the Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, Bev­er­ly Ram­sey-Moore, open­ly ex­pressed her sup­port for Kan­ga­loo’s in­au­gur­al ini­tia­tive, which iden­ti­fied the na­tion­al in­stru­ment as a tool for re­duc­ing crime and pover­ty.

“The pa­n­yard and the pan camps will def­i­nite­ly bring about mean­ing­ful change in the lives of our young peo­ple. They’ll learn to co­op­er­ate with each oth­er, the spir­it of com­pro­mise, of de­ci­sion-mak­ing, how to use emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, and come about with con­struc­tive crit­i­cism. And, most im­por­tant­ly, con­flict res­o­lu­tion,” Ram­sey-Moore said.

The Pan Camp be­gan yes­ter­day and takes place on the grounds of the Pres­i­dent’s House, where it will end with a con­cert on Fri­day.