FAY­OLA K J FRAS­ER

From the sleepy fish­ing vil­lage of Black Rock, To­ba­go emerged a woman who be­came the bass of the steel­pan com­mu­ni­ty in T&T.

Bev­er­ley Ram­sey-Moore, the 17th Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, and the first woman to ever be elect­ed to the po­si­tion, fills a room with her pas­sion and en­er­gy. She is a woman ded­i­cat­ed to the life­long ser­vice of our na­tion­al in­stru­ment, carved from oil drums, an ever­last­ing sym­bol of the re­source­ful­ness and cre­ativ­i­ty of Trin­bag­on­ian peo­ple. She is a stal­wart of her com­mu­ni­ty and has com­mit­ted her life to the ser­vice of oth­ers through her work in pol­i­tics, ac­tivism, youth en­gage­ment and steel­pan.

The old­est girl born in­to a “steel­pan fam­i­ly”, Ram­sey-Moore re­counts that “al­though we lived close to the pa­n­yard, I wasn’t al­lowed to go in the yard.”

At that time, pa­n­yards were not a wel­com­ing place for young women, but she fond­ly re­mem­bers her fa­ther teach­ing her pan at home.

“My first song on the pan was Michael Jack­son, Ben,” she says, laugh­ing that she can still play it from mem­o­ry to­day.

Her fa­ther and un­cles were the found­ing mem­bers of To­ba­go’s old­est famed steel­band, Katzen­jam­mers. She be­came the man­ag­er of the band in 2002 and has in­tro­duced many in­no­v­a­tive el­e­ments to the band, in­clud­ing pi­o­neer­ing the for­ma­tion of the youth arm of the steel or­ches­tra and the de­vel­op­ment of three small busi­ness­es with­in the Katzen­jam­mers pa­n­yard space.

Al­though her navel string is buried in Katzen­jam­mers pa­n­yard, as the now Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, Ram­sey-Moore is an avid sup­port­er of all steel­bands, say­ing: “All the bands are my bands, and pan is the spir­it of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Pan has al­ways been at the core of Ram­sey-Moore’s life, and her love for pan ex­tends in­to her deep love for the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Since pri­ma­ry school, I was al­ways con­cerned about oth­er peo­ple,” Ram­sey-Moore mus­es, as she re­calls how her work in the com­mu­ni­ty be­gan. Her in­volve­ment as a com­mu­ni­ty leader, youth men­tor, cul­tur­al or­ga­niz­er and per­former, cat­a­pult­ed her pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer in­to the realm of pol­i­tics and gov­er­nance. In 1992 she was elect­ed to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Black Rock/Whim. She served as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for eight years, dur­ing which time she was ap­point­ed to serve as Sec­re­tary with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture and As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary for Youth and Sport in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

In her cur­rent role as the Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, the first fe­male pres­i­dent in the 69-year his­to­ry of the or­ga­ni­za­tion, Ram­sey-Moore leads the or­ga­ni­za­tion pow­er­ful­ly, but with flex­i­bil­i­ty, and an eye for pro­pelling pan to the fore­front of the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

De­scrib­ing the pin­na­cle of her ca­reer, she re­calls the his­toric mo­ment she wit­nessed the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture Ran­dall Mitchell de­liv­er a state­ment at the Unit­ed Na­tions Head­quar­ters, New York, in­tro­duc­ing a res­o­lu­tion to com­mem­o­rate the steel­pan. A col­lab­o­ra­tion among Pan Trin­ba­go, the Gov­ern­ment of T&T, the Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, and the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs brought to the 193 mem­bers of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly the cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of the pan and how it cor­re­lates to cul­tur­al, so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. The UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly then de­cid­ed to pro­claim 11 Au­gust as World Steel­pan Day, invit­ing all stake­hold­ers to cel­e­brate.

“This was a solemn oc­ca­sion,” Ram­sey-Moore says, “what an achieve­ment for the pi­o­neers be­fore us, who shed blood and tears to en­sure that this in­stru­ment could flour­ish.”

Ram­sey-Moore has had to make hard de­ci­sions at times, which are not al­ways well re­ceived, but she re­lies on the strength of her spir­i­tu­al­i­ty to guide her. Her trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship has cen­tred around pro­mot­ing a brand of the or­ga­ni­za­tion that re­flect­ed pru­dent man­age­ment of the fi­nances of Pan Trin­ba­go and ac­count­abil­i­ty. One of her fo­cal goals has been to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for the youth to dis­cov­er and ex­press their skills, us­ing “pan as a ve­hi­cle for on­go­ing so­cial trans­for­ma­tion.” She al­so pledged to re­build self-suf­fi­cien­cy and fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence for the or­ga­ni­za­tion, and un­der her lead­er­ship, for the first time in 30 years, Pan Trin­ba­go ob­tained an un­qual­i­fied au­dit opin­ion on its fi­nan­cial af­fairs.

Her bold man­age­ment of the or­ga­ni­za­tion has not al­ways been easy, and Ram­sey-Moore ac­knowl­edges that there are al­ways chal­lenges to be faced, es­pe­cial­ly as she has made her way through male-dom­i­nat­ed en­vi­ron­ments in pol­i­tics and steel­pan.

“In Pan Trin­ba­go it hasn’t been easy,” she says, re­mem­ber­ing her­self as the on­ly fe­male can­di­date when con­test­ing for the pres­i­den­cy of the or­ga­ni­za­tion. Ad­vis­ing oth­er women in these en­vi­ron­ments to nev­er wa­ver and be­lieve in them­selves, she calls on women to “speak to your in­ner spir­it, let your in­tu­ition guide you, and trust your­self, my sis­ters, you will make it in life.”

In the bel­ly of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah in 1980, with a rapt au­di­ence in wait, All Stars’ notes of Scrunter’s “Woman on the Bass” per­me­at­ed the air, echo­ing through the stands. Ram­sey-Moore re­mem­bers the per­for­mance as an icon­ic, piv­otal mo­ment, paving the way for women’s in­volve­ment in steel­pan and bring­ing women in flocks to the pa­n­yards.

“That per­for­mance high­light­ed the fe­male play­er, the bass play­er, as the back­bone and body of the steel­pan.”

She search­es her mem­o­ry for the oth­er lyrics of the song, but on­ly a few res­onate: “woman on the bass”.

“It doesn’t mat­ter what the tenors, sec­onds or cel­los are play­ing, un­less you com­ing with that bass.”

For her, it un­der­lined the way that women are the skele­tons, and back­bones of the fam­i­ly, com­mu­ni­ty, schools and the pow­er we yield to cre­ate change.

Bev­er­ley Ram­sey Moore is a woman that we, as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, have been watch­ing for a long time, as she blazes her way through the ranks, al­ways keep­ing her­self firm­ly root­ed in her com­mu­ni­ty. She has right­ful­ly tak­en her place on our list of Women to Watch as she con­tin­ues to achieve un­prece­dent­ed ac­com­plish­ments for her­self, and Trinidad & To­ba­go as a whole.

With every new step she takes, she is armed with her strong faith, “will­ing and ready to give my best”, know­ing that ser­vice is the hall­mark of her life.

Fay­ola K J Fras­er is a pro­fes­sion­al in the in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment are­na. She has a BA in In­ter­na­tion­al (Mid­dle East­ern) Stud­ies and an MSc in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions and Diplo­ma­cy from the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics.