PM to audience at Miss Afro T&T Pageant

Nigel Teles­ford

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has praised the in­au­gur­al Miss Afro Trinidad and To­ba­go Pageant as a fit­ting cel­e­bra­tion of African her­itage, re­mem­brance and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, com­mend­ing Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin for in­tro­duc­ing what she be­lieves can be­come a last­ing fix­ture on the coun­try’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion cal­en­dar.

Ad­dress­ing a stand­ing-room-on­ly au­di­ence of more than 700 pa­trons at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the great­est trib­ute T&T could pay to its African an­ces­tors was to re­mem­ber their sac­ri­fices and cel­e­brate the en­dur­ing lega­cy they left be­hind.

“The best that we can do to ho­n­our our an­ces­tors who came out of Africa is to re­mem­ber,” the Prime Min­is­ter told the au­di­ence af­ter ar­riv­ing mid­way through the pro­gramme from an of­fi­cial func­tion at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

She not­ed al­so that African in­flu­ence con­tin­ues to shape every as­pect of T&T’s cul­tur­al land­scape.

“Many of you spoke tonight ... whether it is in cul­ture, whether it is in rhythm, whether it is in dance, whether it is just in joy of liv­ing. Let us give praise ... to all our an­ces­tors. They brought us to where we are now,” she de­clared, just be­fore an­nounc­ing the win­ners.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so praised the stan­dard of com­pe­ti­tion dis­played by the 14 del­e­gates, who each rep­re­sent­ed an African na­tion, say­ing that she and the fel­low par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in at­ten­dance were par­tic­u­lar­ly im­pressed by their pre­sen­ta­tions and knowl­edge of African his­to­ry and cul­ture.

“You were so good in your speak­ing and in the themes that you ex­pressed ... Give all these women a round of ap­plause. And we are look­ing for­ward to next year’s com­pe­ti­tion!”

The in­au­gur­al pageant, staged un­der the theme “Threads of Africa, Fab­ric of a Na­tion,” formed part of the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment’s Eman­ci­pa­tion pro­gramme and cel­e­brat­ed the beau­ty, re­silience, lead­er­ship and lim­it­less po­ten­tial of Afro-Trinida­di­an women, while ho­n­our­ing the en­dur­ing lega­cy of African an­ces­tors.

The pro­gramme al­so ho­n­oured four cul­tur­al stal­warts for their out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to African her­itage and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment with the min­istry’s African Ex­cel­lence Awards. They were UTT Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe, El­la An­dall, Dr Efebo Wilkin­son and Sis­ter Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da.

The del­e­gates rep­re­sent­ed the African na­tions of Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nige­ria, Sene­gal, Sey­chelles, Ugan­da, Zam­bia and Zim­bab­we and re­searched the his­to­ry and cul­tur­al tra­di­tions of their re­spec­tive coun­tries through­out the com­pe­ti­tion for their pre­sen­ta­tions

Vista­bel­la res­i­dent Delece Ra­bathaly, 19, rep­re­sent­ing Zim­bab­we, was crowned the in­au­gur­al Miss Afro T&T. Brit­ney Smith, rep­re­sent­ing Sene­gal, was named first run­ner-up and Ms Eman­ci­pa­tion T&T, while Re­bec­ca Bap­tiste, rep­re­sent­ing Sey­chelles, claimed sec­ond run­ner-up and the Ms African Essence ti­tle.

The win­ners al­so re­ceived prizes of $20,000, $10,000 and $8,000, re­spec­tive­ly.

Or­gan­is­ers ex­pressed hope that the pageant would be­come an an­nu­al na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion of African her­itage.