KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Ole Mas com­pe­ti­tion for schools in San Fer­nan­do will go on as planned as a ma­jor spon­sor has stepped in.

The South School’s Car­ni­val Ole Mas 2024 Re­Jou­vert­na­tion will take place on Jan­u­ary 27 at South Park Mall, Tarou­ba, with al­most 300 stu­dents from 30 schools par­tic­i­pat­ing. South Park will not on­ly spon­sor the venue but al­so the in­fra­struc­ture and per­son­nel.

At a news con­fer­ence at City Hall yes­ter­day, South Park Mall di­rec­tor Stu­art Ra­hael said the rea­son for build­ing the shop­ping fa­cil­i­ty was not just for re­tail and en­ter­tain­ment busi­ness­es but to cre­ate a space for the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do to host events like these.

Ra­hael said the mall hosts small-scale events, but this part­ner­ship with the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion takes it up a lev­el.

“We like that you guys have cho­sen Ole Mas specif­i­cal­ly be­cause we all know pret­ty mas is alive and well in Trinidad. Every­body loves their Car­ni­val as it is now, but the more tra­di­tion­al as­pects of it seem to be slow­ly dy­ing and be­ing lost a bit, so choos­ing to ed­u­cate the youth and bring that back with the youth is a bril­liant idea, and I think the fu­ture will be brighter be­cause of it,” Ra­hael said.

Penal­ties for tardy bands

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris said plans are pro­ceed­ing “swim­ming­ly” ahead of Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day as South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice ap­proved the routes. The cor­po­ra­tion’s chair­man of Tourism, Cul­ture and Arts, Coun­cil­lor Ryaad Ho­sein, said South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice ex­am­ined the routes and mapped out its emer­gency ex­its and ac­cess points. He said park­ing was avail­able at the Skin­ner Park sec­ond-class ground.

Rough­ly 38 bands will par­tic­i­pate in J’Ou­vert, and Car­ni­val Tues­day mas has an es­ti­mat­ed 21. Mas­quer­aders will palance along var­i­ous routes, in­clud­ing a chip along the San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­front for J’Ou­vert.

Kid­dies Car­ni­val on Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 11, will be­gin out­side the Para­mount Build­ing at Cir­cu­lar Road, turn on­to Cof­fee Street, head down Cipero Street and end with judg­ing at Skin­ner Park.

J’Ou­vert be­gins at 4 am. Mon­day mas will start at 2 pm. Judg­ing will be at the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA).

Car­ni­val Tues­day’s Pa­rade of the Bands will get go­ing at 9 am.

Re­gard­ing the peren­ni­al tar­di­ness of some bands and the lengthy wait spec­ta­tors en­counter, Par­ris said this was one of the is­sues raised with stake­hold­ers. He said that the San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee came up with judg­ing penal­ties for bands that block oth­er bands along the pa­rade route.

The May­or said he wants to meet with Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters be­fore Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day on sev­er­al is­sues re­lat­ed to San Fer­nan­do Car­ni­val. He said a prize struc­ture is al­ready there, but de­pend­ing on fund­ing from the NCC and oth­er spon­sors, the com­mit­tee may be a bit more am­bi­tious with their hopes.

“Since Sep­tem­ber, we have been en­gag­ing with the stake­hold­ers of Car­ni­val in the city of San Fer­nan­do like nev­er be­fore. We sat down in this very cham­ber with mem­bers of the J’Ou­vert fra­ter­ni­ty, mem­bers of the Ole Mas fra­ter­ni­ty, and mem­bers of the pret­ty mas fra­ter­ni­ty, and they were the ones who came up with the idea of what they want­ed their Car­ni­val to look like in the city of San Fer­nan­do.”