Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter two years of vir­tu­al ac­tiv­i­ties, Red Cross Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val is set to be back on the streets for 2023.

Speak­ing at Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety’s (TTRCS) head­quar­ters yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, project and event man­ag­er at the Red Cross Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee Joel Bay­ley said their Pa­rade of the Bands, sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 11th, will still take place in a “safe” and “con­trolled” en­vi­ron­ment.

He al­so an­nounced plans for a band new ac­tiv­i­ty.

“In 2023, we will launch the first-ever Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val dig­i­tal mag­a­zine and cof­fee ta­ble lim­it­ed edi­tion. It is a cel­e­bra­tion of the thou­sands of chil­dren and cre­atives who have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Red Cross Kid­dies Car­ni­val over the past 66 years.

“We be­lieve that this mag­a­zine is im­por­tant to fur­ther em­pha­sise the im­por­tant role that Kid­dies Car­ni­val con­tin­ues to play to con­tribute to the longevi­ty of the Car­ni­val in­dus­try as a whole, and to en­sure that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Kid­dies Car­ni­val has a se­cure place among the in­ter­na­tion­al greats of cre­ativ­i­ty and unique cul­tur­al ex­pres­sion,” Bay­ley said.

Bay­ley al­so not­ed the suc­cess of last year’s V65 event, which re­quired young peo­ple to sub­mit de­signs and con­structs of car­ni­val cos­tumes with the as­sis­tance of ex­pe­ri­enced de­sign­ers.

“[The V65] proved to be a re­sound­ing suc­cess and it opened a new op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­flu­ence pos­si­bil­i­ties through youth and cul­ture,” he said.

The chal­lenge will be held again next year and will be broad­cast in Sep­tem­ber 2023.

Re­gion­al Di­rec­tor of the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of the Red Cross and Red Cres­cent So­ci­eties Martha Keays said the pan­dem­ic gave them time to re­flect and come back bet­ter.

“It al­so made us stronger; it helped us to reimag­ine, rein­vent our­selves and be even more in­no­v­a­tive in terms of how we reach com­mu­ni­ties and how we serve com­mu­ni­ties,” Keays said.

Mean­while, in her re­marks, TTRCS pres­i­dent Jill De Bourg said, “Our goal, when we pi­o­neered this event in 1956, re­mains the same to­day: to pro­duce a mag­nif­i­cent stage show, that high­lights our cul­ture, to cre­ate a plat­form for the chil­dren of Trinidad and To­ba­go – and by ex­ten­sion, the world can par­tic­i­pate in and learn about our car­ni­val, and pro­mote good, healthy, and age-ap­pro­pri­ate en­ter­tain­ment for our youth dur­ing the an­nu­al fes­tiv­i­ties.”

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters was al­so in at­ten­dance and ex­pressed his ex­cite­ment about the event re­turn­ing to the streets.

“It’s an even greater sight to see when the chil­dren, who make up such an in­te­gral part of Car­ni­val, can re­turn. We know that car­ni­val is in good hands,” he said.

Pe­ters added that he is al­so hope­ful that the launch of Car­ni­val 2023 at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah to­day will be event­ful.