Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Af­ter al­most eight years of plan­ning, staff and stu­dents of the Mt Hope Sec­ondary School (MHSS) have fi­nal­ly host­ed their first cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za.

Prin­ci­pal Lisa-Mar­cel­la Hen­ry-Legall said the school has al­ways com­mem­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant re­li­gious and cul­tur­al hol­i­days in T&T, but it had al­ways been their goal to cel­e­brate many di­verse cul­tures si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

Hen­ry-Legall added that the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s Cul­tur­al Trans­for­ma­tion Pol­i­cy (2023-2027) pro­pelled their at­tempts. Goal 7 of the Gov­ern­ment’s Na­tion­al De­vel­op­men­tal Plan, Vi­sion 2030 (Putting Peo­ple First: Nur­tur­ing Our Great­est As­set), rec­om­mends the re­vi­sion of the school cur­ricu­lum to em­pha­sise core val­ues, na­tion­al­ism, and work­force readi­ness skills.

“This ini­tia­tive was im­me­di­ate­ly em­braced by our school’s com­mu­ni­ty as a fo­rum to con­tin­ue to high­light the pos­i­tives that have been emer­gent for al­most ten years,” she stat­ed.

Cul­tur­al Li­ai­son Dr Sacha John-Charles-Baynes said the event host­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Cuban, Guyanese, Mex­i­can, Colom­bian, and Ger­man em­bassies.

“We have the Tamana group who was do­ing dance the co­coa, we have Rubadari Vic­tor who is do­ing sto­ries on Anasi; we have NALIS who is show­cas­ing both East In­di­an as well as African folk­lore,” she said.

John-Charles-Baynes said there was al­so wire bend­ing.

She said the stu­dents dis­played a keen in­ter­est in de­vel­op­ing them­selves, and the cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za gave them an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case them­selves.

“We are not ac­tu­al­ly la­belled as a high-risk school, so over the years we have per­formed in var­i­ous pro­duc­tions; the stu­dents are in­volved in foot­ball and net­ball as well they’ve won sev­er­al prizes,” she said.

John-Charles-Baynes said they planned to ex­tend the event and may even take it to To­ba­go.

Pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Ab­by Tay­lor told the as­sem­bly that cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion was more than just mu­sic, danc­ing, and food but the way they thought, ex­pressed them­selves, told sto­ries and built com­mu­ni­ties.

She said cul­ture bridged gaps, con­nect­ed gen­er­a­tions, and gives a sense of shared pur­pose.

The two-day event, which is be­ing held on the com­pound along Main­got Street, Mt Hope, start­ed yes­ter­day and will end to­day.