If you want to know the end, look at the be­gin­ning–African proverb

It's one of the most dif­fi­cult, di­vi­sive and fun­da­men­tal is­sues in Caribbean and Com­mon­wealth his­to­ry. Is it that peo­ple of African de­scent are still "No­body"? We must be un­afraid, fear­less, re­lent­less and in­domitable in claim­ing the space and not on­ly claim­ing it but mak­ing it a safe space.

The de­scen­dants of the slaves must not al­low the pas­sage of time to di­min­ish the rel­e­vance of the in­hu­mane, bar­bar­ic and bru­tal his­to­ry of the told and un­told sto­ries of en­slaved peo­ple, the transat­lantic slav­ery, the plan­ta­tion econ­o­my and the busi­ness of slav­ery. To those who be­lieve it's not about the past it's on­ly about the present and fu­ture. If you want to know the end look at the be­gin­ning.

Au­gust 1, 1985, T&T be­came the first in­de­pen­dent coun­try to de­clare Eman­ci­pa­tion Day a na­tion­al hol­i­day to com­mem­o­rate the abo­li­tion of slav­ery.

Last week an im­por­tant we­bi­nar was held so as to re­main true to a promise made in the orig­i­nal Trin­ba­go 2021 bid con­cept to host the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games. It's laud­able the de­ter­mi­na­tion of Mar­tin Reynolds, the Com­mon­wealth Games Fed­er­a­tion (CGF) di­rec­tor of strat­e­gy, lega­cy and part­ner­ships to ho­n­our the vi­sion of the bid con­cept ar­tic­u­lat­ed by Kwanieze John, Rheeza Grant and Chanelle Young and the align­ment of Trin­ba­go2021 now 2023 with "Eman­ci­pa­tion".

One of the pre­sen­ta­tions en­ti­tled "Fes­ti­vals of Re­sis­tance in Trinidad and To­ba­go - Em­pow­er­ing Com­mu­ni­ties through Cul­ture" by Dara Healy- a writer, sto­ry­teller, dancer-chore­o­g­ra­ph­er and ac­tress of film and stage from Trinidad and To­ba­go (T&T). Dara found­ed the cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tion, Idake­da Group Lim­it­ed in 1998 and the non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion, the Ida Marie Guer­ra In­dige­nous Cre­ative Arts Net­work, ICAN in 2012. She is pas­sion­ate about the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of move­ment and dance and ded­i­cates her cre­ative skills to­wards the en­rich­ment of vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and com­mu­ni­ties. Her pre­sen­ta­tion was pow­er­ful, pro­found and thought-pro­vok­ing.

En­ti­tled - The Trin­ba­go 2023 In­ter­na­tion­al Slav­ery Mu­se­um (ISM) Vir­tu­al Tour and Fes­ti­vals of Re­sis­tance - the cel­e­bra­tion and sig­nif­i­cance of T&T Car­ni­val and Eman­ci­pa­tion. The we­bi­nar al­so in­clud­ed a fa­cil­i­tat­ed vir­tu­al tour and talk by the ISM of Liv­er­pool.

The idea is to pro­vide ath­letes, in par­tic­u­lar, but al­so of­fi­cials, coach­es, ad­min­is­tra­tors and sport lead­ers com­ing to T&T with an in­sight in­to the strate­gic, cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of host­ing a mul­ti-sport Com­mon­wealth Games in the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic.

It was an ef­fort to high­light that the Trin­ba­go 2023 open­ing cer­e­mo­ny is not just "a par­ty" but of deep sig­nif­i­cance and cathar­sis.

The in­vi­ta­tion to the we­bi­nar was cir­cu­lat­ed to the 72-mem­ber Com­mon­wealth Games As­so­ci­a­tions (CGAs). Fifty par­tic­i­pants at­ten­tive­ly lis­tened to the pre­sen­ta­tions by Dara and the ISM.

Mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions about eman­ci­pa­tion, slav­ery and colo­nial­ism fight, the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in the Com­mon­wealth in­clud­ing the Caribbean.

To­day, the cur­tain will raise on the his­toric first-ever mul­ti-sport event to be held in T&T.

An­oth­er im­por­tant el­e­ment of the Trin­ba­go 2021/2023 bid vi­sion is to have the steel­pan at the core of the Games' sport­ing, mu­si­cal and cul­tur­al brand iden­ti­ty. "Pan on de Podiu!" Imag­ine hear­ing the pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them of all 72 Com­mon­wealth na­tions and ter­ri­to­ries.

We must be proud of the dis­tinc­tive sweet sound of our steel­pan. The steel­pan is our own in­ven­tion by "Tri­nis" of African her­itage.

The Com­mon­wealth Youth Games is here T&T. Rise up! It's our time to shine!