$1.5m for unsponsored steelbands
Posted: Thursday, January 26, 2006

By Joan Rampersad

The Ministry of Community Development Culture and Gender Affairs paid out $1.5 million in grants to unsponsored steelbands from all over Trinidad and Tobago yesterday.

The distribution ceremony took place at Queen’s Hall in St Ann’s, where representatives from 108 of the 129 steelbands registered with Pan Trinbago for Panorama gathered to collect their cheques.

In her address to the panmen, Culture Minister Joan Yuille-Williams said, "We are not only assisting you to solve some of your financial problems for the Panorama competition but, we also expect that our assistance will help you to provide a foundation for keeping your steelband alive and active beyond the Carnival Season."

The minister said there is now an urgent demand for steelbands to become involved in nation-building activities. She told the pannists, "You now have a responsibility that goes beyond the music. In the early years of your movement, steelbands were community bands that proudly represented their communities, and they received loyal support from members of the community. It is this type of community spirit that kept the spirit of unsponsored bands alive, and which could still contribute to the survival of some of our steelbands."

She added that in a period when crime is a major problem, "we must collectively take responsibility to restore the safety and security in our country which our ancestors enjoyed." she noted that as an institution which historically captured the interest of our youth, the steelband movement has a role to play. Before her, writer Earl Lovelace also spoke of the youths that were involved in the creation of pan. He said, "The very youths of today who are involved in other activities should know that the earlier youths were very involved in making of pan."

Lovelace said that pan is a monument created by ordinary people and as beneficiaries of it, "we must know what we have and guard it jealously." He added that pan should be regarded as the greatest monuments of all times, likening it to the wonders of the world such as the pyramids of Egypt.

He said that pan needs to be recognised in some tangible way, perhaps by having a statue erected.

Earlier, Junior Culture Minister, Eddie Hart, told panmen that they need not close up shop if they failed to qualify for later rounds of competition.

He said that pan and mas go hand in hand, and urged them to come out on the road for Carnival.

http://www.newsday.co.tt/stories.php?article_id=32812

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