Emancipation Village to place focus on African consciousness, cultural heritage

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

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As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks 188 years since eman­ci­pa­tion, the Pan African Fes­ti­val re­turns to­day with a re­newed call to deep­en un­der­stand­ing of African his­to­ry, cul­ture and iden­ti­ty while con­fronting the lega­cies of colo­nial­ism.

The eight-day cel­e­bra­tion, held un­der the theme “Ig­nit­ing African Con­scious­ness: Dis­man­tling Colo­nial Lega­cies,” opens at 10.30 am at the Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and con­tin­ues un­til Au­gust 1.

The fes­ti­val is or­gan­ised by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee (ESC) as part of the coun­try’s an­nu­al ob­ser­vance of Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, which com­mem­o­rates the end of slav­ery and the free­dom of en­slaved Africans.

Dr Asha Kam­bon, di­rec­tor of pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions at the ESC, said that while the or­gan­i­sa­tion con­tin­ues to face chal­lenges in se­cur­ing re­sources, this year’s pro­gramme is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide a mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ence for the pub­lic.

“We nev­er have enough re­sources, so let me start there,” Kam­bon said.

She said the eight-day com­mem­o­ra­tion re­quires sig­nif­i­cant sup­port, not­ing that oth­er fes­ti­vals of­ten re­ceive greater re­sources even when they are held for short­er pe­ri­ods.

“Any oth­er fes­ti­val, if it’s one day alone, those fes­ti­vals are well-re­sourced, well-sup­port­ed. We are not so for­tu­nate, let’s put it that way,” she said.

“So def­i­nite­ly, what­ev­er re­sources we are re­ceiv­ing, it’s not enough. I can tell you that.”

De­spite those chal­lenges, Kam­bon said the ESC re­mains grate­ful for the sup­port it re­ceives from ser­vice providers and oth­ers who con­tin­ue to as­sist with the fes­ti­val.

She said ser­vice providers un­der­stand the im­por­tance of the event and con­tin­ue to work with the or­gan­i­sa­tion de­spite de­lays in re­ceiv­ing pay­ment.

“They come, and they work, and they give us ser­vice, and they un­der­stand that it’s re­al­ly go­ing to take some time to be able to be paid for the ser­vices that they pro­vide for us, be­cause very of­ten we do not re­ceive the re­sources to sup­port the fes­ti­val in time to be able to pay our ser­vice providers.”

Kam­bon said this year’s pro­gramme is ex­pect­ed to ap­peal to the pub­lic from the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny through to the fi­nal day.

“I think when you look at the pro­gramme this year, it is spec­tac­u­lar. I think peo­ple are go­ing to love it from the open­ing to the end.”

One of the high­lights will be Shikamoo to Su­perBlue, a trib­ute to vet­er­an so­ca artiste Su­perBlue, which has al­ready at­tract­ed at­ten­tion.

Kam­bon ex­plained that Shikamoo, a Swahili word mean­ing “praise to our el­ders,” is a pro­gramme that ho­n­ours per­form­ers from Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean who are now el­ders in the per­form­ing cir­cles.

Pre­vi­ous ho­n­ourees have in­clud­ed Chalk­dust, David Rud­der, El­la An­dall and Re­la­tor.

Kam­bon said the pro­gramme ac­knowl­edges the con­tri­bu­tions of these per­form­ers through trib­utes by younger artistes while al­so pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial sup­port.

“We have found a way to give prais­es to them, both in terms of ac­knowl­edg­ing their per­for­mances through song and so on by younger per­form­ers, but al­so in en­sur­ing that there is some sort of fi­nan­cial sup­port giv­en to the artists.”