Brent Zephyrine

In an event ex­pect­ed to en­rich the purse of the Chil­dren's Life Fund in the next two weeks, the hon­orary con­suls of the Con­sular Corps of T&T will host its first an­nu­al In­ter­na­tion­al Food Fes­ti­val, un­der the dis­tin­guished pa­tron­age of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The rev­e­la­tion was made last Wednes­day by the Dean of the Con­sular Corps of T&T and Hon­orary Con­sulate for Lebanon Amer Haidar, dur­ing an in­ter­view he had with the Sun­day Guardian. The char­i­ta­ble event, which is sched­uled to take place at the Hilton Trinidad Pool­side on Oc­to­ber 8, from 6 to 9 pm, will show­case the na­tion­al dish­es, drinks and cul­ture (dance, mu­sic) of some 33 of the 36 coun­tries through­out the world that com­prise the Con­sular Corps at­tached to T&T.

In his in­vi­ta­tion to the Food Fes­ti­val, Haidar said while the event af­ford­ed one the op­por­tu­ni­ty to "savour an in­cred­i­bly di­verse buf­fet menu of ap­petis­ing cui­sine" na­tive to 33 na­tions rep­re­sent­ed, it was al­so an ide­al chance "to make a sig­nif­i­cant" con­tri­bu­tion to the lives of sick, "un­der­priv­i­leged and dis­en­fran­chised young­sters", who stood to ben­e­fit from the pro­ceeds of the fes­ti­val. "Your con­tri­bu­tion of $750 per tick­et will en­sure that chil­dren who are in need of life sav­ing surgery and med­ical treat­ment will in­deed re­ceive it as well as those who are in need of a place to call home or food to quell their hunger," Haidar said.

He added that while it was nec­es­sary "to touch" (fi­nan­cial­ly) those char­i­ta­ble or­gan­i­sa­tions de­cid­ed on by the Corps, most of the pro­ceeds would go to­wards needy chil­dren in T&T as well as to the Chil­dren's Life Fund. "Af­ter all, this coun­try (T&T) has giv­en us all so much and we have to give back some­thing and all the mon­ey we make would be spent on chil­dren," Haidar ex­plained. He said while each con­sulate had his/her own port­fo­lio, their job was "ba­si­cal­ly, to bring our coun­tries (T&T and their own) clos­er with re­spect to "busi­ness, trade, ed­u­ca­tion, va­ca­tion and oth­er­wise."

Min­is­ter "plant­ed the seed"

Haidar said the "idea" for the fes­ti­val came from For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan whom he met at one of the Corps' quar­ter­ly lun­cheons. "He (Ram­bachan) men­tioned the idea and you know some­how, I felt an oblig­a­tion to do it be­cause it was a great idea to bring our cul­ture, dance, mu­sic and food to the shores of T&T. "Not to men­tion, as a Corps, I felt that we should do some­thing mean­ing­ful for T&T," he said. In giv­ing a peek in­to what pa­trons can ex­pect at the event, Haidar hint­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of there be­ing "a bel­ly dancer from the Mid­dle East, Vod­ka from Fin­land, some­thing from Thai­land and lots of give­aways."

Haidar con­firmed that "all the Con­sulates" would be present at the fes­ti­val and was "hop­ing that the Diplo­mat­ic Corps would sup­port" by pur­chas­ing tick­ets to the event. "Ac­tu­al­ly, I con­tact­ed the Dean of the Diplo­mat­ic Corps Ri­car­do Thomp­son, who was ex­treme­ly kind and help­ful and he as­sured me that he would send to all the Em­bassies, an in­vi­ta­tion to at­tend and/or to pledge a fi­nan­cial en­dorse­ment of their sup­port," he said. Among those en­ti­ties that have con­firmed their spon­sor­ship of the In­ter­na­tion­al Food Fes­ti­val are: Blink Broad­band, Caribbean Air­lines, Ad­van­tage Ad­ver­tis­ing and WIN TV.