Tech­nol­o­gy, the en­vi­ron­ment and folk­lore were among the themes that bands por­trayed on Sat­ur­day dur­ing the First Cit­i­zens Bank Ju­nior Pa­rade of Bands at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

The pa­rade got off to a late start as the first band crossed the stage around 10 am when it was sup­posed to have start­ed at 7 am.

How­ev­er, it was well worth the wait for thou­sands who were at the Grand Stand to wit­ness the cre­ativ­i­ty in kids' ver­sion of the pa­rade of the bands.

Chil­dren dressed in colour­ful cos­tumes gal­loped, frisked and danced across the stage in the 46th year of the Kid­dies Car­ni­val pa­rade of the bands.

Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) of­fi­cials, 118 bands were tak­ing part in the com­pe­ti­tion.

Cross­ing the stage first was the First Cit­i­zens Bank band which blend­ed the bank’s lo­go with chil­dren dressed in green wear­ing tra­di­tion­al cos­tumes.

Rosary Boys' RC School pre­sent­ed their theme "App­nea," a play on the word "app," where they por­trayed the lat­est in so­cial me­dia tech­nol­o­gy.

Each sec­tion of the band dressed in a dif­fer­ent colour por­tray­ing a dif­fer­ent colour for "What­sapp," "Youtube," "Twit­ter," and "In­sta­gram."

The band "Love the Beach" paid homage to ma­rine life and the ocean as mas­quer­aders dressed up as life­guards and each sec­tion rep­re­sent­ing a dif­fer­ent beach in the coun­try.

St Patrick's RC School, New­town, pre­sent­ed "Tales from the For­est" where they took on­look­ers back to T&T’s myth­i­cal past with mas­quer­aders wear­ing cos­tumes im­i­tat­ing Soucouyants, La Di­a­b­lesse and oth­er pop­u­lar folk­lore char­ac­ters.

Ir­ma and Friends band had their mas­quer­aders dressed as sports play­ers. They al­so built a float of a goal post to com­plete their por­tray­al.

Clan­ish­ness band’s theme was glob­al warm­ing and in the mid­dle of the colour­ful cos­tumes and kids jump­ing up, they sent the strong mes­sage that more needs to be done to save the en­vi­ron­ment.

One sec­tion of the band even had the name "Gre­ta," pay­ing an ob­vi­ous trib­ute to the young Eu­ro­pean en­vi­ron­men­tal­ist, Gre­ta Thun­berg, who shot to fame last year with her call on world lead­ers to pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment be­fore it is too late.

Mar­garet and As­so­ciates band took Car­ni­val spec­ta­tors on a jour­ney to Africa with an African -themed pa­rade. Each sec­tion of the band rep­re­sent­ed a dif­fer­ent African coun­try and some even wore head­pieces sim­i­lar to pop­u­lar an­i­mals in Africa.

Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, chair­man of the NCC, who spoke at the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, lashed out at crit­ics who said that the coun­try’s cul­ture was dy­ing and that there is no one from the younger gen­er­a­tion to car­ry the cul­ture for­ward.

"Lots of peo­ple say that the cul­ture is dy­ing, but that is a cliche. When I see all these young peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in ca­lyp­so and mas, who can say that our cul­ture is dy­ing? Some­thing is wrong with them (the crit­ics)," he said.