More than 120 lo­cal ar­ti­sans will be fea­tured at the Craft Hub TT Na­tion­al Christ­mas Vil­lage and Craft Mar­ket at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah Pad­dock, this Sat­ur­day, De­cem­ber 10, from 10 am to 9 pm. 

It is an ini­tia­tive by the Ex­port Cen­tres Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (EC­CL), the State En­ter­prise man­dat­ed to de­vel­op the craft in­dus­try.

“This ini­tia­tive aims at fa­cil­i­tat­ing the mar­ket­ing, sale, and pro­mo­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s craft, and en­cour­ag­ing a “shop lo­cal” move­ment,” EC­CL ex­plains in a re­lease.

It added: “EC­CL con­tin­ues to sup­port ar­ti­sans and craft en­tre­pre­neurs as we pro­mote the skills and in­nate tal­ent of our cit­i­zens, while pre­serv­ing our rich and di­verse her­itage and cul­ture. Im­por­tant­ly through such ini­tia­tives, we al­so con­tribute to eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­ty and job cre­ation.”

The Christ­mas Vil­lage and Craft Mar­ket will be opened of­fi­cial­ly by EC­CL’s Line Min­is­ter, Sham­fa Cud­joe MP, the Min­is­ter of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment.

In ad­di­tion, EC­CL’s sis­ter state en­ter­prise Ex­porTT will be present with thir­ty women en­tre­pre­neurs un­der their SheTrades ini­tia­tive, along with TSTT’s Par­lour, which of­fers prod­ucts for on­line pur­chase.

“Those at­tend­ing the Christ­mas Vil­lage and Craft Mar­ket will al­so have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to make whole­sale or­ders from EC­CL’s on­line Na­tion­al Whole­sale Craft Store, and on­line pur­chas­es from EC­CL’s Na­tion­al Craft E-Store,” the com­pa­ny said.  “There will be free Wi-Fi pow­ered by bmo­bile, in ad­di­tion to Linx and cred­it card ameni­ties.”

Pa­trons can ex­pect to be en­ter­tained with live per­for­mances by Ali­cia Ja­gas­sar and Los Alum­nos de San Juan, Rome, and An­dre Don­awa, along with a wide se­lec­tion of DJs.

EC­CL says there will be ham­per give­aways cour­tesy Ex­porTT, and an as­sort­ment of food and bev­er­ages will be avail­able for pur­chase through­out the day.