The King’s Relay Baton made its first stop at Invader’s Bay along the Audrey Jeffers Highway near St James with a beach clean-up exercise yesterday.
Hosted by the Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development (CNIRD), the clean up got underway around 9 am with some 70 persons, with the majority being students from the St Bernadette Preparatory School and St Francois Girls’ College.
The participants gathered refuge from the shoreline and sorted the trash before weighing their collections.
Members of the CNIRD were on hand to assist.
Deputy Acting High Commissioner of the United Kingdom to T&T Claire Nichols also joined in the environmental effort along with executive director of CNIRD Marissa Mohammed and president of the Trinidad and Tobago Commonwealth Games Association (TTCGA) Dianne Henderson.
Nichols told Guardian Media Sports the British Consulate is elated to be involved in the gesture.
“The High Commission is delighted to support today’s clean-up.
“It is a great honour for Trinidad and Tobago to start the King’s Baton Relay and it is a great honour for the UK to be hosting the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow (Scotland) next summer.”
She added, “We are delighted to be here this morning.
“Everybody recognises the importance of keeping our environment clean and maintaining clean oceans and this is all closely linked to Commonwealth’s theme of sustainability this year.”
Mohammed was also thrilled with the efforts her organisation have been doing to preserve the planet.
“Today, we are so happy to partner with the King’s Baton Relay, the Commonwealth Clean Ocean as well as the T&T Commonwealth Games Association to host today’s clean-up.
“We are kick-starting the event for the King’s Baton which will be going to 75 countries belonging to the Commonwealth.
“We are also happy to partner with new initiatives to curb the amount of plastics in our shorelines.”
Today, the Baton will be taken to several schools in Trinidad in a caravan.
Couva Anglican Primary, Exchange RC Primary, St Francis College and St Patrick’s RC Primary are the educational institutions on the list.
The King’s Baton arrived in the country on Tuesday.
UK High Commissioner Jon Mark Dean hosted a reception to commemorate the baton’s arrival.
T&T’s Judo Olympian Gabriella Woods accepted the King’s Baton on this country’s behalf in the UK before it began its journey.
T&T is the first leg of the 75-country journey the King’s Baton is scheduled to travel to, before the start of the next year’s Commonwealth Games.
St Kitts and Nevis is the next destination.