An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Fash­ion en­tre­pre­neur Ecliff Elie has been recog­nised for his con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cre­ative in­dus­tries, re­ceiv­ing the 2026 Make It Hap­pen Award at the third edi­tion of BE­COM­ING III.

The award, pre­sent­ed in Oc­to­ber at the NA­PA Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain, placed the spot­light on the busi­ness po­ten­tial of Caribbean fash­ion and the role cre­ative en­tre­pre­neurs play in de­vel­op­ing the Or­ange Econ­o­my.

Elie was recog­nised for build­ing a fash­ion en­ter­prise that has car­ried his cre­ative vi­sion in­to the re­gion­al mar­ket. His award ac­knowl­edged both the de­sign tal­ent be­hind his work and the busi­ness dis­ci­pline re­quired to sus­tain a fash­ion brand.

The recog­ni­tion fol­lows an­oth­er sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for Ecliff Elie Lim­it­ed, which was named Medi­um-Sized Busi­ness of the Year at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s 2025 Cham­pi­ons of Busi­ness Awards.

The Make It Hap­pen Award is an hon­orary des­ig­na­tion recog­nis­ing peo­ple whose con­tri­bu­tions to so­ci­ety are un­der­pinned by re­silience, per­se­ver­ance and ded­i­ca­tion. It seeks to tell the hu­man sto­ries be­hind the Or­ange Econ­o­my, which en­com­pass­es in­dus­tries dri­ven by cre­ativ­i­ty, cul­ture and in­tel­lec­tu­al ex­pres­sion.

Pre­vi­ous re­cip­i­ents in­clude Scorch founder Kwe­si Hop­kin­son in 2024 and en­ter­tain­er Akhen­aton Lewis, pop­u­lar­ly known as Yung Bred­da, in 2025.

Founder An­dre Sealey in­tends to ex­pand the recog­ni­tion to oth­er pil­lars of the Or­ange Econ­o­my, with an even­tu­al am­bi­tion to take the award be­yond Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Build­ing a plat­form

for cre­ativ­i­ty

The third edi­tion of BE­COM­ING al­so marked a shift in the plat­form’s de­vel­op­ment, with in­creased cor­po­rate par­tic­i­pa­tion af­ter three years of build­ing the ini­tia­tive.

Sealey not­ed that the grow­ing list of cor­po­rate part­ners re­flects the role busi­ness­es can play in sup­port­ing cre­ative in­dus­tries and the peo­ple work­ing with­in them.

At an ear­li­er press con­fer­ence, NA­PA chair­man Ken Phillips not­ed that cor­po­rate sup­port should ex­tend be­yond plac­ing lo­gos on event ma­te­r­i­al. That per­spec­tive speaks to a wider chal­lenge fac­ing the cre­ative sec­tor: se­cur­ing mean­ing­ful in­vest­ment that helps peo­ple and busi­ness­es de­vel­op their work and reach sus­tain­able mar­kets.

For Sealey, the in­creased back­ing rep­re­sents grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the val­ue of in­vest­ing in cre­ative peo­ple and the com­mu­ni­ties they in­flu­ence

Host­ed by Ja­son Williams and Kadesh Alexan­der, the in­vi­ta­tion-on­ly Oc­to­ber event brought to­geth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives from busi­ness, the diplo­mat­ic corps, the cre­ative in­dus­tries, me­dia and the wider pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Me­dia per­son­al­i­ty De­sha Ramb­ha­jan-Malli was al­so among the 2026 Make It Hap­pen Award re­cip­i­ents. Her award in­tro­duced me­dia as a new pil­lar of the ini­tia­tive.

Be­yond the awards, BE­COM­ING is seek­ing to cre­ate a meet­ing point for peo­ple whose work spans com­merce, cul­ture and cre­ative ex­pres­sion.

For T&T, the chal­lenge is to trans­late that tal­ent in­to sus­tain­able busi­ness­es, wider mar­kets and greater op­por­tu­ni­ties for pro­fes­sion­als whose work con­tributes to the coun­try’s cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty.

BE­COM­ING’s lat­est edi­tion placed that con­tri­bu­tion along­side more con­ven­tion­al mea­sures of busi­ness suc­cess, mak­ing the case that the peo­ple shap­ing so­ci­ety through cre­ativ­i­ty de­serve recog­ni­tion as much as those build­ing en­ter­pris­es through tra­di­tion­al com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.