Par­tic­i­pants in the the Prime Min­is­ter's Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion's Ju­nior Best Vil­lage Camp Se­ries 2012 got an op­por­tu­ni­ty to high­light the skills they had ac­quired when the pro­gramme end­ed with an ex­hi­bi­tion at Queen's Hall in St Ann's on Mon­day.

The event fea­tured pre­sen­ta­tions from stu­dents of ten camps which took place in eight dis­tricts and show­cased the skills which were ac­quired dur­ing the months of Ju­ly and Au­gust in song (pa­tri­ot­ic), dance, mono­logue and drum­ming with themes re­lat­ed to the 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence. The dis­plays were set up out­side Queen's Hall to re­flect the tal­ent that the 670 stu­dents de­vel­oped dur­ing their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the camps, which each ran for two weeks.

The ar­eas in which they were in­struct­ed in­clud­ed art and craft (paint­ed jer­seys, wood­en plaques, bead­ed jew­el­ry, mo­saics, dolls, flo­ral arrange­ments, plants, pa­per cre­ations) and culi­nary del­i­ca­cies (fruit pre­serves, cakes, sweet­bread, lo­cal sweets).

Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Don­na Fer­raz at­tend­ed the ex­hi­bi­tion and de­liv­ered brief re­marks quot­ing T&T's first Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, re­mind­ing the stu­dents that the fu­ture of the na­tion was in their school­bags.

Fer­raz told the young­sters they could as­pire to be any­thing they want­ed through hard work and dis­ci­pline and con­grat­u­lat­ed them on their cre­ativ­i­ty. She al­so said steps would be tak­en to en­sure that the Ju­nior Best Vil­lage Pro­gramme con­tin­ued in 2013 and in­to the fu­ture.

The Ju­nior Best Vil­lage Pro­gramme, which was formed with the ob­jec­tive of cre­at­ing more aware­ness and par­tic­i­pa­tion by the youth of the Best Vil­lage Pro­gramme, in­volved stu­dents from each com­mu­ni­ty who honed their skills in the fol­low­ing ar­eas:

&mid­dot; Culi­nary Arts

&mid­dot; Dra­ma

&mid­dot; Mu­sic

&mid­dot; Dance (in­clud­ing the Bele)

&mid­dot; Art & craft and

&mid­dot; Lo­cal food & pre­serves and

&mid­dot; Life skills

The Prime Min­is­ter's Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion falls un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment.