The Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing (Mi­LAT) Pro­gramme host­ed its an­nu­al Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion on Feb­ru­ary 10 at the Car­ni­val Vil­lage, Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Cur­ricu­lum Co­or­di­na­tor, Llewellyn Mac In­tosh, high­light­ed that “for ed­u­ca­tion to be im­por­tant it should be ground­ed in the cul­ture of a peo­ple.”

His state­ment set the tone for the Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion as it was geared to­wards ex­pos­ing the Cadets of the pro­gramme to Trin­bag­on­ian Arts and Cul­ture.

This year’s com­pe­ti­tion af­firms the be­lief that the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Car­ni­val is in good hands as ev­i­denced by 1st Place win­ners in the Orig­i­nal and Vin­tage Cat­e­gories, Nathaniel Williams and Joshua Hinds, re­spec­tive­ly. Williams’ com­po­si­tion en­ti­tled Tic Toc em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ef­fec­tive crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures while Hinds’ ren­di­tion of Come With It paid a spe­cial trib­ute to the Ca­lyp­son­ian icon, the late Black Stal­in.

The Com­pe­ti­tion’s or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee al­so fo­cused on shar­ing this cul­tur­al art form with young peo­ple as it is the phi­los­o­phy and man­date of Mi­LAT to broad­en the skill set of the Cadets and pro­vide an av­enue for fu­ture ca­reers in the mu­sic in­dus­try.

The Mi­LAT Ca­lyp­so Com­pe­ti­tion al­so pro­vid­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for grad­u­ates of the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC) and the On-the-Job Trainee (OJT) Pro­grammes to par­tic­i­pate in and con­tribute to this ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing process. These young per­sons, dis­played their re­source­ful­ness and tal­ents as they as­sist­ed with the cre­ation of cos­tumes, props, stage man­age­ment, pho­tog­ra­phy and videog­ra­phy.

Since its in­cep­tion in 2007, the Mi­LAT Pro­gramme con­tin­ues to em­pha­sise a holis­tic ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence by “of­fer­ing an ed­u­ca­tion ground­ed in cul­ture.”

The Mi­LAT Pro­gramme, un­der the purview of the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice is a two year, full-time res­i­den­tial Aca­d­e­m­ic Pro­gramme de­signed for young men be­tween the ages of 16-20 years, aimed at bridg­ing the gaps for those young adults who may wish to pur­sue aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines as well as trans­form their so­cial be­hav­iours in a high­ly struc­tured and dis­ci­plined en­vi­ron­ment.

The Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice re­mains com­mit­ted to bring­ing all stake­hold­ers to­geth­er to pro­vide pro­grammes and ser­vices that cater to the per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al needs of our youth.