Car­ol Quash

Bar­ter­ing is a cen­turies-old prac­tice that al­lowed com­mu­ni­ties to ex­change sur­plus goods be­fore the in­tro­duc­tion of stan­dard­ised cur­ren­cy. Now, or­gan­is­ers in San­gre Grande hope to re­vive that spir­it of shar­ing through two Mar­ket Day events aimed at pro­mot­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty sup­port and as­sis­tance for those fac­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.

San­gre Grande Mar­ket Day com­mit­tee chair­man Pas­tor Court­ney Fran­cois and Lo­cal Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment (LED) of­fi­cer at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (SGRC) El­isha Sankar are lead­ing ef­forts to host a pre­cur­sor event on Au­gust 8 at the SGRC carpark, ahead of what they hope will be­come a na­tion­wide an­nu­al Mar­ket Day on Re­pub­lic Day, Sep­tem­ber 24.

“Mar­ket Day is re­al­ly in­di­vid­u­als from each home and com­mu­ni­ty com­ing with what they have and shar­ing it,” Fran­cois ex­plained.

The Au­gust 8 event has been ap­proved by the coun­cil’s Tourism and LED com­mit­tee and will serve as a demon­stra­tion for oth­er mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions in­ter­est­ed in stag­ing sim­i­lar events.

“We’re us­ing that op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­vite the oth­er 14 mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions to come to see how it is done, and then they can have it im­ple­ment­ed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly across the coun­try on Sep­tem­ber 24,” Fran­cois told Guardian Me­dia.

The idea was in­spired by an ex­pe­ri­ence Fran­cois had about 25 years ago while at­tend­ing a church ser­vice in Wash­ing­ton DC.

Af­ter the ser­vice, he re­called see­ing large quan­ti­ties of bread placed on ta­bles for peo­ple to take.

When he re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go, he won­dered whether a sim­i­lar ini­tia­tive could work in San Pe­dro, Rio Claro, where many res­i­dents re­lied on small-scale farm­ing.

“It was a hum­ble farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty with no ma­jor form of em­ploy­ment. Every­body was do­ing a lit­tle agri­cul­ture for the most part, and it was re­al­ly a tough com­mu­ni­ty fi­nan­cial­ly for peo­ple to get by.”

He en­cour­aged res­i­dents to bring what­ev­er they pro­duced, with peo­ple con­tribut­ing items such as sea­son­ings, fruits and veg­eta­bles.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of the peo­ple who were part of the plan­ning were women and sin­gle moth­ers. So while we had some men in­volved in the plan­ning, I must give cred­it to the women. They were the ones who han­dled the kitchen, so they were very much in­volved.”

The first Mar­ket Day at the San Pe­dro Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist (SDA) church at­tract­ed a large turnout. Res­i­dents brought what they had and ex­changed goods with oth­ers, cre­at­ing an in­for­mal mar­ket­place where every­one con­tributed.

“And even though you brought one thing, you were able now to get from as many things on the ta­bles that peo­ple brought. Those who had lemon brought lemon, those who had co­conut, brought that. There was dasheen, cas­sa­va; every­thing to make a com­plete meal.”

The ini­tia­tive grew over time, with par­tic­i­pants adding items such as rice, cloth­ing and oth­er ne­ces­si­ties. As Fran­cois moved be­tween com­mu­ni­ties dur­ing his years as an SDA min­is­ter, he con­tin­ued in­tro­duc­ing Mar­ket Day in dif­fer­ent ar­eas.

In 2015, he part­nered with the SDA or­gan­i­sa­tion to stage si­mul­ta­ne­ous Mar­ket Day events across Trinidad and To­ba­go, with 100 lo­ca­tions par­tic­i­pat­ing.

“We did it in 100 lo­ca­tions out of the 163 lo­ca­tions. It came off well, and over 56,000 peo­ple ben­e­fit­ed from that ini­tia­tive.”

The con­cept lat­er at­tract­ed in­ter­est from com­mu­ni­ties in To­ba­go, Cana­da and Grena­da, with peo­ple seek­ing guid­ance on or­gan­is­ing sim­i­lar events.

San­gre Grande has al­so host­ed sim­i­lar ini­tia­tives in the past. Fran­cois re­called work­ing with the late Ter­ry Ron­don, for­mer chair­man of the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion, on a com­mu­ni­ty mar­ket that brought to­geth­er coun­cil­lors, re­li­gious lead­ers and res­i­dents.

“It was not just about the ex­change of goods; it was about bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er,” Fran­cois said.

For the up­com­ing events, or­gan­is­ers are reach­ing out to farm­ers, com­mu­ni­ty groups, min­istries, NGOs and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“We’ve start­ed the out­reach, which is com­mu­ni­cat­ing and li­ais­ing with var­i­ous stake­hold­ers, min­istries, NGOs, re­li­gious en­ti­ties…This is just about us do­ing some­thing where even some of our most vul­ner­a­ble per­sons in the com­mu­ni­ties can ben­e­fit from,” Fran­cois said.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion will be free, but or­gan­is­ers are stress­ing that Mar­ket Day is not a hand­out. Every­one tak­ing part must bring some­thing, re­gard­less of how small.