Sean Nero

Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and the Arts Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has made it clear that slav­ery has nev­er de­fined the peo­ple of T&T.

Speak­ing at the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee's (ESC) launch of the Pan African Fes­ti­val and Com­mem­o­ra­tion of African Lib­er­a­tion Day, held on May 25, at Li­on's Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, Fitzblack­man Dri­ve, Wood­brook, she said: "We are de­fined by our lega­cy, the rhythms of our mu­sic, the vi­bran­cy of our cul­ture, the bold­ness of our art, the savoury rich­ness of our cui­sine, the in­spir­ing tales of our lit­er­a­ture, the majesty of our drum­ming and yes, the strength of our peo­ple.

"Africans have made his­to­ry through­out the world–in the fields of med­i­cine, eco­nom­ics, gov­ern­ment, law, sci­ence and agri­cul­ture�just to name a few. If it is that our fates are in­ter­twined, then we ac­cept our com­mon his­to­ry and forge on­wards with com­mon des­tiny."

Gads­by-Dol­ly con­tin­ued, "The Pan African Fes­ti­val at the Lidj Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage is a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al com­mem­o­ra­tion of our African and Trin­bag­on­ian her­itage and cul­ture. It brings to­geth­er mem­bers of the African di­as­po­ra: our broth­ers and sis­ters from Ghana, Nige­ria, Tan­za­nia

and Sene­gal, oth­er Caribbean

ter­ri­to­ries, Latin Amer­i­ca and North Amer­i­ca.

"It in­spires and ex­alts the essence of eman­ci­pa­tion with a fo­rum for com­mu­nion, en­ter­tain­ment, ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness, en­tre­pre­neur­ship, cul­tur­al ex­change and free­dom."

Pride filled the precincts at the min­istry, she said, to join with ESC to­wards en­hanc­ing the cul­tur­al prod­ucts and pos­i­tive­ly trans­form com­mu­ni­ties at the eco­nom­ic, so­cial and psy­cho­log­i­cal lev­els. The Gov­ern­ment, she said, was work­ing to lever­age cul­tur­al her­itage to ben­e­fit com­mu­ni­ties across T&T.

"The fes­ti­val cre­ates op­por­tu­ni­ty for aware­ness for our cit­i­zens. It bol­sters cul­tur­al tourism. It in­volves mem­bers of the cre­ative in­dus­tries in com­mu­ni­ties across the na­tion. These in­clude in­di­vid­ual artistes, groups, steel or­ches­tras, com­mu­ni­ty per­form­ers, youth per­form­ers, mem­bers of the fash­ion in­dus­try, fine artists and crafts­men," added Gads­by-Dol­ly.

"The Pan African Fes­ti­val brings com­mu­ni­ties to­geth­er in a dis­play of tal­ent, dis­ci­pline and or­gan­i­sa­tion. To my African broth­ers and sis­ters, re­silience is key. Re­mem­ber the path laid by our fore-fa­thers. They were strong, hard­work­ing and cre­ative. They looked out for an­oth­er.

"Re­mem­ber who we are...the iron which when placed in the fire, came out as steel...our re­silience with which to be reck­oned," she said.