First Gentleman urges nation to invest in young people

Twen­ty six young peo­ple brought the cur­tain down on this year’s Pres­i­dent’s Pan Camp with a per­for­mance at Pres­i­dent’s House on Sat­ur­day, cap­ping six days of mu­sic, men­tor­ship and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment aimed at build­ing con­fi­dence, lead­er­ship and re­silience.

Now in its third con­sec­u­tive year, the camp brought to­geth­er par­tic­i­pants from the Cot­ton Tree Foun­da­tion, the Scout As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Girl Guides As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cadet Force and Po­lice Youth Clubs. While learn­ing to play the steel­pan was cen­tral to the pro­gramme, or­gan­is­ers said the ini­tia­tive al­so fo­cused on team­work, dis­ci­pline and per­son­al growth through men­tor­ship from ac­com­plished pan­nists, artistes and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als.

The clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by par­ents, guardians, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the par­tic­i­pat­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­vit­ed guests. Two campers re­flect­ed on their ex­pe­ri­ences through po­et­ry and per­son­al tes­ti­mo­ny be­fore the 26 young mu­si­cians per­formed Farmer Nap­py’s How Ah Livin’, the song they had spent the week mas­ter­ing, earn­ing warm ap­plause from the au­di­ence.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Michael Dowlath con­grat­u­lat­ed the campers and un­der­scored the im­por­tance of arts and cul­ture in ed­u­ca­tion and youth de­vel­op­ment.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, First Gen­tle­man Ker­wyn Gar­cia said the suc­cess of the camp showed why Trinidad and To­ba­go should in­vest more heav­i­ly in young peo­ple through pro­grammes that com­bine men­tor­ship, dis­ci­pline and cre­ative ex­pres­sion.

He said the great­est achieve­ment of the camp was not that par­tic­i­pants had learned to play a piece of mu­sic in six days, but that they had de­vel­oped con­fi­dence, re­silience and a stronger sense of pur­pose through the guid­ance of men­tors who open­ly shared their own ex­pe­ri­ences of strug­gle, sac­ri­fice and per­se­ver­ance.

Gar­cia said the Pres­i­dent’s Pan Camp should not re­main a once a year ini­tia­tive but serve as proof that youth de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes work and de­serve to be ex­pand­ed.

“The truth is that we no longer lack ev­i­dence. What we lack is scale,” he said, adding that it was time to act on the lessons learned from pro­grammes such as the camp.

Draw­ing on the ex­am­ple of the pa­n­yard, Gar­cia said the steel­band move­ment teach­es dis­ci­pline, ac­count­abil­i­ty, team­work and mu­tu­al re­spect while giv­ing young peo­ple a sense of be­long­ing be­fore they be­come vul­ner­a­ble to crime or oth­er neg­a­tive in­flu­ences. He said those val­ues could help strength­en com­mu­ni­ties and build a bet­ter fu­ture for the coun­try.

He en­cour­aged the campers to car­ry the lessons of the week be­yond Pres­i­dent’s House, urg­ing them to con­tin­ue ar­riv­ing, lis­ten­ing, prac­tis­ing, ac­cept­ing cor­rec­tion, help­ing oth­ers and per­se­ver­ing.

Gar­cia al­so thanked the or­gan­is­ers, vol­un­teer fa­cil­i­ta­tors, part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions, par­ents and staff of the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent for mak­ing the pro­gramme pos­si­ble. He paid spe­cial trib­ute to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine for sup­port­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion of mem­bers of the Katzen­jam­mers Youth Or­ches­tra from To­ba­go.

Con­grat­u­lat­ing the campers, Gar­cia said the pro­gramme demon­strat­ed what could be achieved when young peo­ple were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op their tal­ents and con­fi­dence through mu­sic and men­tor­ship.

“When young peo­ple find their voic­es, a na­tion finds its fu­ture,” he said.