Kryz­tan­na Sharpe’s call to “Get Your Vac­cine and Go Your Way” and 11-year-old Va­sud­ha Ma­haraj’s ap­peal to “Jab Jab D’ Vac­cine” land­ed them top prizes in the UN in T&T’s Get Vaxxed song con­test.

The UN Res­i­dent Co-or­di­na­tor’s Of­fice ran the com­pe­ti­tion dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion, invit­ing chil­dren ages 17 and un­der to com­pose orig­i­nal songs that en­cour­age peo­ple to get vac­ci­nat­ed. Vac­ci­na­tion re­mains the best de­fence against COVID-19.

Kryz­tan­na’s im­pres­sive ca­lyp­so cat­a­pult­ed her to the ti­tle of Best Song, while Va­sud­ha’s imag­i­na­tive chut­ney fused the lo­cal folk­lore of the Jab Jab char­ac­ter with the Covid-19 vac­cine, win­ning her the ti­tle of Best Orig­i­nal Per­former.

Each child had the sup­port of will­ing par­ents who as­sist­ed the girls in writ­ing and per­form­ing their en­tries. Va­sud­ha’s en­tire fam­i­ly: Mom In­di­ra Ma­haraj, sis­ter Vr­ish­ni Ma­haraj, and dad Aneil Ma­haraj—sup­port­ed her as back­up dancers and video­g­ra­ph­er. Kryz­tan­na’s fa­ther Kendall Sharpe, helped her com­pose the lyrics and melody for her win­ning en­try.

Earl Boodasingh, chairman of the Massy Foundation, right, makes a presentation to Vasudha Maharaj, winner of the prize for Most Original Performer.

Massy Group, a val­ued mem­ber of the UN in T&T’s Busi­ness Round­table, spon­sored cash prizes of $3,000 for each win­ner to as­sist with ed­u­ca­tion ex­pens­es.

UN res­i­dent co-or­di­na­tor Ma­ri­na Wal­ter, and chair­man of the Massy Foun­da­tion, Earl Boodas­ingh, dis­trib­uted prizes to the win­ners dur­ing a brief cer­e­mo­ny at UN House on Chancery Lane, on Au­gust 30.

Wal­ter con­grat­u­lat­ed the girls for ap­ply­ing their cre­ativ­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty to the most ur­gent ap­peal of our time. She en­cour­aged them to con­tin­ue ad­vo­cat­ing in their com­mu­ni­ties for ed­u­ca­tion and in­for­ma­tion about COVID-19 and the vac­cine.

Boodas­ingh said the Massy Foun­da­tion is proud to sup­port the two girls with their ed­u­ca­tion. He praised them as “re­spon­si­ble role mod­els” and urged them to con­tin­ue us­ing their in­flu­ence to shape a bet­ter so­ci­ety.