Kali­fa Clyne

Pan Trin­ba­go has en­tered in­to an agree­ment to take the steel­pan to schools in Nige­ria. This was re­vealed by Pan Trin­ba­go pres­i­dent Kei­th Di­az, dur­ing a prize- giv­ing cer­e­mo­ny on Fri­day for the Peo­ple's Choice win­ners in the medi­um and large band cat­e­gories of the Panora­ma fi­nals last month.

The agree­ment is among the na­tion­al pan body and three oth­er par­ties - the T&T Nige­ria Cham­ber, FCL Fi­nan­cial Ltd and Xcell Steel­pan Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Co Ltd, a Niger­ian firm. Di­az said the Niger­ian com­pa­ny was formed for the pur­pose of pro­duc­ing and sell­ing steel­pans through­out Africa, with em­pha­sis on schools, where the use of steel­pans in schools in Nige­ria and South Africa was tak­ing root.

Di­az said un­like trips to the Amer­i­c­as, trips to the African con­ti­nent had al­ready yield­ed fi­nan­cial re­turns. At the cer­e­mo­ny, Courts Sound Spe­cial­ists re­ceived the $10,000 Peo­ple's Choice prize for the medi­um band cat­e­go­ry and large band Neal and Massy Trinidad All Stars re­ceived the $10,000 Peo­ple's Choice prize from FCL Fi­nan­cial.

FCL Fi­nan­cial's rep­re­sen­ta­tive Daniel Lam­bert al­so re­vealed an ex­pan­sion of the peo­ple's choice prizes to the small, and sin­gle pan cat­e­gories. He de­scribed the text-to-vote op­tion as a suc­cess, with 2,744 vot­ers for the Panora­ma fi­nals.