As is the known rou­tine, nu­mer­ous de­vel­op­men­tal ba­bies will go crash­ing through open win­dows to­geth­er with some­times murky ad­min­is­tra­tive bath­wa­ter as the coun­try tran­si­tions painstak­ing­ly from one po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion to the next.

In some in­stances, the still­born will num­ber among the ca­su­al­ties. In oth­ers, healthy, promis­ing off­spring will meet their doom.

In the process, sus­tained so­cial and eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty is sac­ri­ficed in the name of new­ness and change.

Had cir­cum­stances been dif­fer­ent, we could have af­ford­ed the fol­ly of past eras, but the chal­lenges of to­day do not of­fer abun­dant space or time to fail to ad­vance the de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

Our rich boun­ty of cre­ative val­ue and its po­ten­tial for wealth cre­ation is too of­ten wil­ful­ly ig­nored. Af­ter all, what good is a STEM with­out the flow­ers and the fruit?

Thank­ful­ly, men­tion of the prospects for our “or­ange econ­o­my” fea­tured oc­ca­sion­al­ly dur­ing the re­cent cam­paign. There was lit­tle dif­fer­ence in plat­form rhetoric.

This may sig­nal room for fu­ture bi­par­ti­san sup­port and ad­min­is­tra­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion.

There are peo­ple and or­gan­i­sa­tions who have been con­sis­tent­ly mak­ing the case for greater recog­ni­tion of the cre­ative sec­tor.

The T&T Cham­ber, for in­stance, has sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­vel­oped the con­cept with ac­com­pa­ny­ing con­crete ini­tia­tives in the ar­eas of film, mu­sic, and fash­ion.

It has al­so elab­o­rat­ed vi­tal con­nec­tions with tourism, soft­ware, and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty. This is one wheel that re­quires no in­vent­ing.

Gen­er­al­ly, the coun­try has some­thing of a head start in the ar­eas of steel­pan, mas’, and in­dige­nous mu­sic. Yet, there is need for a more en­light­ened, self-re­liant ap­proach.

Some arith­metic has al­ready been done re­gard­ing cold, net na­tion­al gains, but the cal­cu­la­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with chem­istry are lack­ing.

It was promis­ing that the Glob­al Trinidad and To­ba­go um­brel­la–un­der which ex­porTT, In­vesTT and Cre­ativeTT were to be re­lo­cat­ed–had been con­ceived and quite re­cent­ly launched.

Yes, there is al­ways room for tweak­ing and re­fine­ment in achiev­ing the re­quired syn­er­gies. But, to me, the move rep­re­sent­ed long-await­ed aware­ness of na­tion­al val­ue through a har­mon­is­ing of of­fi­cial, na­tion­al ef­fort in the cre­ative sec­tor.

It is how­ev­er al­so true that pri­vate en­tre­pre­neur­ship in this field has long been prac­tised and, in some cas­es, high­ly re­fined.

There are peo­ple who have nev­er sought or ac­quired of­fi­cial sup­port who have made their mark and are con­tribut­ing to na­tion­al wealth in the process. Let’s hear from them.

But a sin­gle co­or­di­nat­ing mech­a­nism for ex­plor­ing all avail­able op­tions and cre­at­ing an of­fi­cial frame­work to al­low ini­tia­tives to be fruit­ful makes em­i­nent sense. Glob­al Trinidad and To­ba­go is a vi­able ba­by that should not be ex­posed to an open win­dow for dis­pos­al.

Fine, the pow­ers that be may wish to have folks in­volved among whom they feel more com­fort­able–though the code here is “or­ange” and not “yel­low” or “red.” It is a shade some­where in be­tween those pri­ma­ry colours.

This news­pa­per space has been re­peat­ed­ly em­ployed to pro­mote greater aware­ness of what is hap­pen­ing in the cre­ative field out­side of the head­lin­ers in pan and mu­sic. There is an abun­dance of lit­er­a­ture, the­atre, dance, and the vi­su­al arts. Pan re­mains the best thing we do in this coun­try. There is lit­tle de­bate there. But al­so scan what is un­fold­ing among young peo­ple in the wider field of mu­sic. This is not hap­pen­ing in small bits and pieces. There is a vir­tu­al avalanche of young mu­si­cal tal­ent cross­ing the tra­di­tion­al di­vides and pre­sent­ing it­self in greater fre­quen­cy through­out the coun­try and re­gion.

Hope­ful­ly, when there are peo­ple as­signed to ac­tion this it will not in­clude those who will be over­ly sur­prised. We have had line min­is­ters, pub­lic ser­vants, and sundry of­fi­cials who are clue­less about what is hap­pen­ing. You don’t see them at the shows. They are ab­sent. They are bliss­ful­ly un­aware.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, hav­ing re­newed my own em­brace of vi­su­al art, I have be­come in­creas­ing­ly aware of the vi­bran­cy of this field of artis­tic en­deav­our. There are ex­hi­bi­tions, mar­kets, on­line ven­tures, tu­ition op­por­tu­ni­ties, and an en­tire world that has re­mained large­ly ig­nored (in some re­spects thank­ful­ly so) by of­fi­cial­dom.

Fi­nal­ly (as if there isn’t so much to say about to­day’s sub­ject), have a look at what is hap­pen­ing in the lit­er­ary field. Who was or wasn’t at the 2025 fif­teenth edi­tion of Bo­cas Lit­Fest? This is a pre­mier an­nu­al event. Aside from this, there are nu­mer­ous launch­es, read­ings, work­shops and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties that tap in­to the lit­er­ary as­sets of our coun­try.

Space has run out for me yet again. But check our fea­tures pages and the week­end GML sup­ple­ments. Tell me what you see. If you don’t see great promise, your eyes aren’t work­ing prop­er­ly.