This year cel­e­brates the 61st an­niver­sary of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Com­pe­ti­tion, which is run by the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and con­tin­ues to up­hold and ho­n­our T&T’s rich cul­tur­al lega­cy.

The Ju­nior Best Vil­lage Camps, cre­at­ed as a non-com­pet­i­tive as­pect of the tour­na­ment, are one of its many of­fer­ings for 2024.

Chil­dren as young as five years old par­tic­i­pat­ed in the camps and re­ceived in­ten­sive in­struc­tion in both tra­di­tion­al and tech­ni­cal com­po­nents of cul­tur­al per­for­mance arts.

Par­tic­i­pants stud­ied mu­si­cal, dra­mat­ic, artis­tic, and craft skills that are es­sen­tial to the coun­try’s cul­tur­al lega­cy un­der the di­rec­tion of knowl­edge­able tu­tors.

The  Ju­nior Best Vil­lage Ex­trav­a­gan­za marks the con­clu­sion of the two-week train­ing at the Ju­nior Best Vil­lage camps.

Here, each dis­trict per­forms in front of oth­er campers, tu­tors, and fam­i­ly mem­bers to demon­strate the skills they have learned.

The min­istry set up ten camps this year, each with a dif­fer­ent eth­nic theme, all around Trinidad.

The St An­drew/St David camp at the San­gre Grande Civic Cen­tre in­cor­po­rat­ed a British cul­tur­al theme.

Over 900 par­tic­i­pants had fas­ci­nat­ing cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences from the ten pro­grammes com­bined. Due to the vary­ing start dates, three pro­grammes end­ed on Ju­ly 19, while the re­main­der will end to­mor­row.