Bmobile sponsors Ramleela groups after cuts to Divali Nagar

By Shas­tri Boodan

Four Ram­leela or­gan­i­sa­tions have re­ceived spon­sor­ship of more than $40,000 each from bmo­bile, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to in­crease sup­port for com­mu­ni­ty-based cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath an­nounced the ini­tia­tive on Sun­day dur­ing a vis­it to the Pierre Road Ram­leela cel­e­bra­tions in Char­lieville, Ch­agua­nas.

Padarath told Guardian Me­dia that each of the four or­gan­i­sa­tions had re­ceived more than $40,000 in spon­sor­ship from bmo­bile, the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions brand of state-owned Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT).

The an­nounce­ment comes days af­ter the Gov­ern­ment in­di­cat­ed that state-owned com­pa­nies would no longer rent booths at Di­vali Na­gar to dis­trib­ute para­pher­na­lia, a prac­tice that had re­port­ed­ly cost hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars an­nu­al­ly.

Com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions stag­ing Ram­leela and Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions con­tin­ue to re­ly heav­i­ly on fundrais­ing and pub­lic do­na­tions to meet the costs of their ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing at Pierre Road, Padarath an­nounced bmo­bile’s spon­sor­ship of the cel­e­bra­tions, say­ing he had come to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I come not with my hands swing­ing,” he said.

He said the spon­sor­ship was in­tend­ed to sup­port com­mu­ni­ties work­ing to pre­serve cul­tur­al tra­di­tions passed down through gen­er­a­tions and as­sured the com­mit­tee that bmo­bile would con­tin­ue to sup­port the cel­e­bra­tions as part of the Gov­ern­ment’s cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ment ef­forts.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go pre­pares to cel­e­brate Di­vali 2026, Padarath de­scribed the fes­ti­val as a cel­e­bra­tion of good over evil and light over dark­ness. He al­so paid trib­ute to the an­ces­tors who brought their re­li­gious tra­di­tions to the coun­try.

Mean­while, Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to en­gage with the Fe­lic­i­ty and Pierre Road Ram­leela com­mit­tees to ex­plore op­tions for se­cur­ing per­ma­nent lo­ca­tions for their ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ho­sein ac­knowl­edged that al­though many groups stage per­for­mances for on­ly one or two weeks each year, they need suit­able spaces to op­er­ate and de­vel­op their cul­tur­al pro­grammes through­out the year.

He said per­ma­nent fa­cil­i­ties could ben­e­fit the or­gan­i­sa­tions while pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to show­case cen­tral Trinidad’s cul­tur­al her­itage and tal­ent to in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ences.

The an­nounce­ments could pro­vide ad­di­tion­al sup­port for Ram­leela com­mit­tees, many of which face fi­nan­cial and lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenges in stag­ing their an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tions and pre­serv­ing the tra­di­tion.

Cor­po­rate spon­sor­ship and ac­cess to per­ma­nent fa­cil­i­ties could give the groups greater op­por­tu­ni­ties to sus­tain and de­vel­op their cul­tur­al pro­grammes be­yond the an­nu­al fes­tiv­i­ties.