The Botan­i­cal Gar­dens in Port-of-Spain saw, on Au­gust 6th, manyin­di­vid­u­al­sof dif­fer­ent sizes, ages an­de­th­nic­i­ties­gath­ered to take part in a spe­cial hu­man­i­tar­i­an­event. The event known as the 'Un-Defin­ing Beau­ty project' was sparked by the cre­ative mind ofrenowned youth pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Kali­fa Damani.The Un-Defin­ing Beau­ty Project is an ini­tia­tive fo­cused on show­cas­ing the di­verse beau­ty of peo­ple with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as ex­plor­ing why cer­tain un­re­al­is­tic stan­dards of beau­ty ex­ist to­day and what we can do to change them. As men­tioned,it is hu­man­i­tar­i­an­re­search with the goal of pub­lish­ing a book with­in the next year. The pub­lished book will re­flect pic­tures show­cas­ing di­verse forms of hu­man beau­ty. It will al­so show­case re­search re­gard­ing self per­cep­tion and body im­age. In­spi­ra­tional sto­ries will al­so be shared by in­di­vid­u­als who were made fun of be­cause of their phys­i­calap­pear­ance and how they­were able to over­come it.

The Botan­i­cal Gar­dens on that Sat­ur­day boast­ed of brave in­di­vid­u­als from across the coun­try who came for­ward to share their past phys­i­calin­se­cu­ri­ties. It was most­ly a pho­to shoot and in­ter­view ses­sion along with fun in­ter­ac­tive games which as­sist­ed in break­ing the ice among new friends.Some of the in­di­vid­u­als were very shy, while oth­ers brave­ly took a step in front of the cam­era with a piece of pa­perde­pict­ingth­eir past in­se­cu­ri­ties. "This event was very in­spir­ing and was a com­mend­able ef­fort by Kali­fa and friends. I look for­ward to more events like this that as­pire to­wards uni­ty" said Ty­ron Man­wah when in­ter­viewed. Tim­o­thy Bootan, a young graph­ic de­sign­er and artist who was re­cent­ly fea­tured in the gieMAGAZINE was al­so spot­ted at the event. He had this to say: "I think it is a great idea! It can help a lot of peo­ple who suf­fer with­in­se­cu­ri­ties. One must re­mem­ber that no one is alone with their prob­lems in the world."

Look­ing around it was amaz­ing to see the var­i­ous types of in­se­cu­ri­ties manyin­di­vid­u­als­deal with. Some were­un­com­fort­able­with their hands, their skin, their eyes and even their hair. Some had big feet while oth­ers had small an­kles, or some just thought that their teeth were too crooked. Allinse­cu­ri­ties came with a sto­ry be­hind it that would have wowed any­one who was will­ing to read. Iron­i­cal­ly, some of the boys at the event said that there were so many 'bess' girls around it was dif­fi­cult to be­lieve that these 'bess' girls had their fair share ofin­se­cu­ri­tiesas well. Speak­ing to gieMAGAZINE af­ter the event, or­gan­is­er Kali­fa Damani stat­ed "It was great hav­ing peo­ple talk about what they were in­se­cure about. By us­ing every­one's ex­pe­ri­ences to help oth­ers - it re­al­ly in­spires and en­cour­ages me." The Un-defin­ing Beau­ty project en­cour­ages you to cel­e­brate your beau­ty no mat­ter how you look. At the end of the day every­one is beau­ti­ful, both on the in­side and out.

Sha­had Ali

Se­nior Press Pass

Cor­re­spon­dent

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies