NARIS­SA FRAS­ER

Terneille Samuel Her­bert knows the val­ue of get­ting op­por­tu­ni­ties to shine in the per­form­ing arts as a child all too well. From be­ing trained by some of the top lo­cal pro­fes­sion­als in dance, the­atre and mu­sic, to plac­ing sec­ond in TTT’s Twelve and Un­der com­pe­ti­tion, she re­mains grate­ful. And now, years lat­er, she has cho­sen to give back to youths through Tal­ent­Pot—a com­pe­ti­tion for kids.

A Bel­mont na­tive, she be­came en­grossed in the per­form­ing arts from the age of ten.

And while she is now an at­tor­ney by pro­fes­sion, her pas­sion for the arts nev­er dwin­dled. “The arts can take you to many dif­fer­ent places,” she said. “And I think right now, in 2026, we have def­i­nite­ly seen the growth and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the per­form­ing arts and cre­ative in­dus­tries ver­sus when I was still in school. It’s very ful­fill­ing.”

She was trained in the­atre by lo­cal vet­er­ans Pene­lope Spencer, Naima Thomp­son and Ly­dia Ledger­wood, mu­sic by Mer­le Al­bi­no-de Coteau, and dance by the Bel­mont Free­town Cul­tur­al Arts and Folk Per­form­ing Com­pa­ny.

She has al­so since graced stages like the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage com­pe­ti­tion, Schol­ar­ship Com­pe­ti­tion of Tal­ent­ed Teenagers, and Miss City of Port-of-Spain, among oth­ers.

“I was per­form­ing in so many places… My cousins and aunts, and un­cles — every­one — would come and see me and cheer me on. I got that uni­ty where the fam­i­ly mem­bers come to­geth­er and show a child that love,” she re­called.

Fast for­ward to 2018, she of­fi­cial­ly launched her com­pa­ny, Dot Ten En­ter­tain­ment, geared to­ward tal­ent man­age­ment and event pro­duc­tion. She is cur­rent­ly so­ca star Mi­cal Te­ja’s cre­ative di­rec­tor and the pro­duc­er/event man­ag­er for his show MAS: The Ex­pe­ri­ence.

“My aim was to cre­ate a space where peo­ple in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try who are now grow­ing in­to their fields can get pos­i­tive di­rec­tion, ad­vice, and guid­ance in the per­form­ing arts.” And she is now con­tin­u­ing along that tra­jec­to­ry with a younger tal­ent pool through Tal­ent­Pot — “a cel­e­bra­tion of the rich blend of cul­tures, rhythms, and tra­di­tions that de­fine us as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans.”

T&T na­tion­als be­tween the ages of sev­en and 12 will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their tal­ents in mu­sic, dance, dra­ma, sto­ry­telling and cre­ative ex­pres­sion. They will al­so ben­e­fit from ed­u­ca­tion­al work­shops led by sev­er­al vet­er­ans in the in­dus­try.

She told WE that she al­ways had a “deep de­sire” to help shape the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers in the per­form­ing arts in­dus­try. And as she re­cent­ly re­flect­ed on her own cre­ative jour­ney, she thought of cre­at­ing a space that high­lights chil­dren, who she de­scribed as “the most pow­er­ful sto­ry­tellers of all.” “When I was their age, I was in a per­form­ing arts school… I was placed in dif­fer­ent com­pe­ti­tions. And I thought, ‘Is there any­thing like that hap­pen­ing to­day in our so­ci­ety aside from the usu­al ju­nior na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions?’ And it just hit me that maybe I could bring some­thing like this back to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

She ex­plained that she sees it as more than just a com­pe­ti­tion but a youth de­vel­op­ment plat­form. The aim this time? To build con­fi­dence, dis­ci­pline, re­silience and cul­tur­al pride. “We have so many tal­ent­ed chil­dren in T&T. I don’t know if peo­ple re­alise,” she said. “Through healthy com­pe­ti­tion and men­tor­ship, chil­dren learn that ex­cel­lence is not just about win­ning, it is about growth, ef­fort, team­work, and be­liev­ing in their own voice.”

She said the in­spi­ra­tion be­hind the com­pe­ti­tion’s name was a mono­logue she per­formed as a child ti­tled Callaloo Chil­dren by po­et and ed­u­ca­tor Miguel Browne.

“It spoke about all these peo­ple in T&T, and they would have made up the callaloo,” she said laugh­ing­ly. “So that was where the idea of the pot came from, where we can put all these dif­fer­ent per­form­ing arts in­side of this one big iron pot.”

Above all, she wants par­tic­i­pants to feel en­cour­aged and em­pow­ered, and able to see that their tal­ents can bring suc­cess. “I al­so think par­ents are notic­ing that their chil­dren can shine bright­ly through these per­form­ing arts. They’re will­ing to al­low their chil­dren to even­tu­al­ly pur­sue their de­grees in the arts,” she added.

She nav­i­gates life us­ing a sin­gle mot­to: Nev­er give up on the pur­suit of a dream. And it is that per­se­ver­ance she wish­es to in­stil in­to up­com­ing gen­er­a­tions.

She said it is a “re­al, full-cir­cle mo­ment” as the mentee has now be­come the men­tor.

“Some­times it hits me like, ‘Wow, you’re re­al­ly do­ing this, and you re­al­ly want to make a dif­fer­ence. You re­al­ly want to help them pow­er these next gen­er­a­tion of tal­ent­ed, amaz­ing lit­tle hu­man be­ings.’” She added, “So I am elat­ed, but I am most­ly just proud of my­self for al­ways stick­ing to what I de­sire to achieve, and putting my best foot for­ward every sin­gle time.”

She looks for­ward to see­ing what the par­tic­i­pants have to of­fer and dis­cov­er­ing “the next su­per­stars” of T&T.

Au­di­tions will be held on April 11 at the St Patrick’s New­town Girls’ RC School in Port-of-Spain, April 18 at the San Fer­nan­do East Sec­ondary School in Pleas­antville, and on April 25 at Bish­op’s High School in To­ba­go.

Reg­is­tra­tion forms, as well as ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion, are avail­able on the com­pe­ti­tion’s so­cial me­dia pages: thetal­ent­pot.tt. E-mails can al­so be sent to thetal­ent­pot.tt@gmail.com.