Gabriel Mc Don­ald is the new Ch­agua­nas Ju­nior Ca­lyp­so champ.

Gabriel, 12, beat a field of 12 fel­low con­tes­tants dur­ing Thurs­day’s com­pe­ti­tion at the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion’s ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex at Cum­ber­batch Street.

The Ed­in­burgh 500 res­i­dent took home the $6000 first prize spon­sored by Caribbean Hous­ing with her ren­di­tion of Madam Pres­i­dent - a trib­ute to T&T’s first fe­male pres­i­dent Paula Mae Weekes. The song spoke of the gen­der role the Pres­i­dent plays in in­spir­ing thou­sands of young women across the na­tion to set their goals at the high­est pos­si­ble lev­el. It was writ­ten by Gabriel’s grand­fa­ther Vic­tor Mac Don­ald, 71, who still sings un­der the so­bri­quet Mr Mack at the Kaiso Show­case.

Plac­ing sec­ond was five-year-old Zachary Ram­some, who sang Wait, while Jahia As­son, who sang Mon­sters Who we Help to Cre­ate, was third. The young­sters par­tic­i­pat­ed as res­i­dents of the bor­ough and did not rep­re­sent the schools they at­tend.

Speak­ing af­ter­wards, Ch­agua­nas Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee chair­man Or­lan­do Nages­sar said he was elat­ed that spon­sors came for­ward and in­ject­ed fund­ing for the Ju­nior Monarch.

This is what we like to hear, the next gen­er­a­tion giv­ing us mean­ing­ful ca­lyp­soes. It is so good to hear chil­dren who live in this com­mu­ni­ty per­form. I hope next year the sit­u­a­tion with the econ­o­my would im­prove and we would be able to of­fer bet­ter prizes. Nev­er­the­less, we are grate­ful to the spon­sors who made this show hap­pened.”