The In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion Port-of-Spain Of­fice (IOM POS) host­ed the Glob­al Mi­gra­tion Film Fes­ti­val (GMFF) on De­cem­ber 3, 2022, in recog­ni­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Mi­grants Day, which is cel­e­brat­ed both an­nu­al­ly and glob­al­ly on De­cem­ber 18.

The GMFF is host­ed by IOM Of­fices in var­i­ous coun­tries from No­vem­ber 28 to De­cem­ber 18, when it cul­mi­nates on In­ter­na­tion­al Mi­grants Day.

The Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, tak­ing in­to ac­count the large and in­creas­ing num­ber of mi­grants in the world, pro­claimed De­cem­ber 18 In­ter­na­tion­al Mi­grants Day.

In­ter­na­tion­al Mi­grants Day is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­mote an in­formed and bal­anced con­ver­sa­tion on mi­gra­tion and to share the sto­ries, ex­pe­ri­ences, and as­pi­ra­tions of mi­grants in their com­mu­ni­ties.

This cel­e­bra­tion al­so re­minds us of our in­ter­de­pen­dence, our com­mon hu­man­i­ty, and the unique con­tri­bu­tions we col­lec­tive­ly make to our shared com­mu­ni­ties.

The film fes­ti­val was held at Es­tate 101, Mar­aval and al­so fo­cused on cul­tur­al in­te­gra­tion as one way in which mi­grants can ben­e­fit so­ci­ety—in this case—specif­i­cal­ly Venezue­lan mi­grants and the in­ter­est­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties and idio­syn­crasies of Trinidad and To­bag­on­ian and Venezue­lan cul­tures. IOM Port-of-Spain Head of Of­fice Jew­el Ali brought open­ing re­marks.

She said: “It is be­lieved that by see­ing this film to­geth­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we can all con­tin­ue to pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ence how mi­grants are seen, sup­port di­ver­si­ty, ad­vance deep­er and wider pol­i­cy in­te­gra­tion, as well as com­bat racism, xeno­pho­bia, and oth­er el­e­ments of in­tol­er­ance.”

Al­so bring­ing re­marks on the evening was US Em­bassy Po­lit­i­cal Of­fi­cer John Miller.

He said: “In­clu­sion means to be­long to a so­cial and le­gal en­vi­ron­ment where peo­ple are wel­comed, ac­cept­ed, and con­nect­ed to one an­oth­er.

This is why we’re here tonight. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers come to­geth­er in friend­ly, car­ing and au­then­tic ways and have op­por­tu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate in com­mu­ni­ty life and on­go­ing evo­lu­tion.”

The film se­lect­ed for the 2022 lo­cal edi­tion was a T&T doc­u­men­tary ti­tled Lift­ed, which was pro­duced in 2019. Set against frank con­ver­sa­tion about di­ver­si­ty in T&T, the film fol­lows a day in the lives of a refugee fam­i­ly as they jour­ney to a Moko Jumbie (stilt-walk­ing) class.

Fol­low­ing the screen­ing, a pan­el dis­cus­sion was held.

The pan­el dis­cus­sion was mod­er­at­ed by Dr Michal Paw­in­s­ki, Lec­tur­er, In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine and com­prised Ki­moy Thomas-Williams, Act­ing Di­rec­tor of the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit, Fa­ther Mar­tin Sir­ju, Vic­ar Gen­er­al of the Ro­man Catholic Church of Trinidad and To­ba­go Gre­vic Al­vara­do, Jour­nal­ist and Anya Ay­oung-Chee, fash­ion de­sign­er/so­cial en­tre­pre­neur. The top­ics in­clud­ed the im­por­tance of mi­gra­tion pol­i­cy, the dan­gers of dis­crim­i­na­tion, the ed­u­ca­tion of mi­grant chil­dren, and the pow­er of cul­ture to unite.

An­oth­er high­light at the event was a pre­sen­ta­tion to Char­maine Gand­hi-An­drews, Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer with the Mi­grant Hero Award from the IOM PoS, for her many ded­i­cat­ed years of pos­i­tive work in the field of mi­gra­tion.

The fes­ti­val was made pos­si­ble through the con­tin­ued sup­port of the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of State Bu­reau of Pop­u­la­tion, Refugees, and Mi­gra­tion (PRM), which has al­so been an es­teemed source of fund­ing for the Re­gion­al Refugee and Mi­grant Re­sponse Plan (RM­RP) since 2019.

Donor con­fer­ences for the RM­RP have been pre­vi­ous­ly host­ed by the Del­e­ga­tion of the Eu­ro­pean Union to Trinidad and To­ba­go and the High Com­mis­sion of Cana­da.

For RM­RP 2023-2024, which will be co-host­ed by the EU and Cana­da, the is­sue of in­te­gra­tion will be giv­en in­creased im­por­tance. The Unit­ed Na­tions Net­work on Mi­gra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UN­NM-TT) al­so pro­vid­ed fi­nan­cial sup­port for the Film Fes­ti­val.