It’s been over a month since T&T has b the weight and ef­fect of the clo­sure of many of busi­ness­es, prompt­ing a loss of earn­ings on dif­fer­ent lev­els since the swell of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Apart from the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to as­sist cit­i­zens of var­ied so­cial back­grounds, many per­sons have pledged sup­port in dif­fer­ent ways, in­clud­ing two lo­cal artistes who re­cent­ly pi­lot­ed projects to as­sist and to share moral sup­port dur­ing this time.

So­ca en­ter­tain­er De­von “Dev” Har­ris of Dev Bar­ber Shop Crew from Co­coyea and Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine of the chut­ney/so­ca band DEN (Dil-e-Nadan) from Gas­par­il­lo in their own ways have cham­pi­oned the cause to em­pha­sis care and share for such per­sons.

In a one minute, 40 sec­ond video, Har­ris en­dorsed the call for peo­ple to take the COVID-19 virus se­ri­ous­ly. He teamed up with some of his mem­bers and spoke about the se­ri­ous­ness and the re­stric­tions so­ci­ety now has to play in the fight against the virus that has called for iso­la­tion world­wide.

Dev’s mes­sage said: “The world is in a fren­zy as we re­luc­tant­ly lis­ten to the pan­dem­ic melody it plays a lone­ly sound of con­fine­ment. As we ad­just to this new apoc­a­lyp­tic cli­mate, thou­sands of lives lost, thou­sands of peo­ple are sick…tick­ing time bomb that we have to defuse. Hu­man­i­ty’s ex­is­tence is be­ing threat­ened—we can­not refuse. A rev­o­lu­tion is on us, so­cial dis­tanc­ing is a must…stay clean, stay healthy, and stay safe.”

Many oth­er artistes have reached out on so­cial me­dia in their own ways, in­clud­ing Dwayne Bra­vo with his We Not Giv­ing Up, and the ex­tem­po chal­lenge ini­ti­at­ed by Na­tion­al Ex­tem­pore Monarch Bri­an Lon­don, which made its rounds on Face­book. Artistes have al­so been rais­ing aware­ness by com­pos­ing new songs on the pan­dem­ic. Among them have been Gre­go­ry “GB” Bal­lan­tyne, Crazy, Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, To­ba­go Cru­soe (Or­t­neil Bac­chus), Mar­cia Mi­ran­da and Os­car B, as well as Hu­mor­ous Ca­lyp­so Monarch The In­cred­i­ble My­ron B. Gospel artiste Denyse Plum­mer al­so pro­duced a reg­gae med­ley via What­sApp.

Ram­nar­ine a for­mer Chut­ney So­ca monarch, al­so raised the bar a bit high­er to in­clude his DEN team and rel­a­tives to pack ham­pers and box­es of food items to de­liv­er to fam­i­lies in sev­er­al parts of the coun­try in­clud­ing Clax­ton Bay, Gas­par­il­lo, Princes Town, Bel­mont, Barataria, Man­zanil­la, Ca­roni and Pe­nal and Debe. He or­gan­ised with sev­er­al small busi­ness­es in­clud­ing Dol­lar Val­ue Su­per­mar­ket, Kevin and Tri­cia Ramd­hanie of Pip­ing De­signs, Ian Williams, Dal­lah En­ter­prise, Darpan Trad­ing Co Ltd, Nadi­ra Ra­haman, Achan fam­i­ly, and the ADON Group that came to­geth­er with the band to as­sist hun­dreds of peo­ple who need­ed the as­sis­tance.

Ram­nar­ine said this was his way of help­ing out at a time when some peo­ple need­ed the help the most. He added that he did not do it for the recog­ni­tion or fame, but just as a kind ges­ture to re­al­ly help peo­ple.

Said the Gas­par­il­lo singing star: “It’s just out of hav­ing a pure heart; the love I have for our peo­ple. When I’m on stage it’s the best feel­ing ever and our peo­ple play an in­te­gral part of this ex­pe­ri­ence so the least I can do is give back and see the smiles on their faces. To just give them some sort of hope.” (In­nis Fran­cis)