“Zankey ga gana al­beeri fon­da. Chil­dren will fol­low the path of the el­ders.” — Song­hay say­ing

Let’s “lis­ten to the el­ders’ phi­los­o­phy”, where we can learn from their en­ter­pris­ing spir­its,

coura­geous mind­sets and self-af­firm­ing souls.

The Pow­er of Four Score cel­e­brates the path­ways and choic­es made by stel­lar change agents. This di­a­logue is be­ing craft­ed as a tes­ta­ment to the ur­gency for re­mod­el­ling for­mu­la­ic ap­proach­es and re­view­ing tried-and-test­ed process­es, to en­vi­sion the fu­ture, forge ac­tion, re­set our de­liv­er­ables, and chart a re­pur­posed life chance.

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is in­deed vi­tal, there­fore in­vok­ing di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion strate­gies which adopt al­ter­na­tive prac­tices and adapt to in­ge­nious de­sign think­ing are be­com­ing more and more para­mount. In a post-pan­dem­ic civil­i­sa­tion, some de­gree of re­tool­ing is ne­ces­si­tat­ed in or­der to ne­go­ti­ate a sense of cen­tre and nav­i­gate in the in­ter­est of sta­bil­i­ty, so with this in mind, the true val­ue of this ini­tia­tive can be high­ly un­der­scored.

For 2022, the Oxy­gen with Nicole (O2N) Foun­da­tion is host­ing one of their Hu­man De­vel­op­ment Talks, at the Hy­att Re­gency, on the 25th of Sep­tem­ber at the Port of Spain Ball­room, from 4 pm. This time round, the con­ver­sa­tion high­lights the in­domitable essences of stal­wart cit­i­zens, over the age of eighty. The un­der­pin­ning is to re­vis­it the pi­o­neer­ing de­posits made by these cham­pi­ons, in an ef­fort to with­draw valu­able nuggets that can mod­i­fy and shape per­spec­tives, go­ing for­ward, in post-Covid times.

The O2N Foun­da­tion

The Oxy­gen with Nicole (O2N) Foun­da­tion is a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion which has tak­en up the charge of cre­at­ing safe space events and ac­tiv­i­ties de­signed to fos­ter cre­ative en­tre­pre­neur­ship agen­da, fa­cil­i­tate so­cial trans­for­ma­tion, di­a­logue and for­mu­late hu­man de­vel­op­ment prospects.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion is chaired by Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith with cre­ative di­rec­tion ex­e­cut­ed by Richard Young. The O2N Foun­da­tion has had an ex­tra­or­di­nary track record of phil­an­thropic ini­tia­tives and ex­em­plary cre­ative sec­tor en­gage­ments that have im­pact­ed, sub­stan­tive­ly, the so­cio-cul­tur­al land­scape, re­gion­al­ly, with for­ays in An­tigua, Guyana, New York, To­ba­go and sev­er­al in­stal­ments, here in Trinidad.

What to ex­pect?

The Pow­er of Four Score will ex­plore view­points and posit op­tions on­to the cur­rent menu of choic­es, so as to re­gauge and ma­noeu­vre in the on­go­ing read­just­ment cli­mate, all in an ef­fort to re­set/piv­ot/di­ver­si­fy method­olo­gies, ul­ti­mate­ly, ap­ply­ing an added val­ue, to claim an em­pow­er­ing space and to be guid­ed by a trust­wor­thy premise. What is hoped for, is a re­turn to a for­mer in­her­ent hu­man com­mu­ni­ca­tion val­ue, a reap­pli­ca­tion of an in­dige­nous trans­fer of wis­dom, an up­cy­cling of the nat­ur­al trans­mis­sion through oral tra­di­tion, a re­think­ing of the orig­i­nal lis­ten-to-one’s-el­ders phi­los­o­phy - the Gri­ot dy­nam­ic - the skill and the abil­i­ty to bring a sense of well­be­ing through sto­ry­telling.

The dis­course high­lights these trail­blaz­ing fore­run­ners, how they grap­pled with con­flict, con­front­ed ad­ver­si­ty, en­gi­neered change, pushed the en­ve­lope, imag­ined out-of-the-box for­mu­lae, or­ches­trat­ed val­ue-added prospects, reeval­u­at­ed ex­ist­ing for­mat, prob­lem-solve out­dat­ed con­straints, brain­stormed rel­e­vant vari­a­tions and con­cep­tu­alised req­ui­site ori­en­ta­tions, how they “upped the ante”, all de­vis­ing evo­lu­tion­ary, some­times rev­o­lu­tion­ary, modes of con­duct with­in a (post) colo­nial con­text.

The wis­dom with­in their jour­neys

These are the uni­ver­sal, sub­lim­i­nal mes­sag­ing from which we can glean best-prac­tice en­act­ment, mo­bilise best-pol­i­cy amend­ments and trans­form so­cio-cul­tur­al dy­nam­ics. We can learn from their en­ter­pris­ing spir­it, their coura­geous mind­sets and their self-af­firm­ing souls. They all have au­then­tic sto­ries to tell, from which we can be en­riched. They have al­ways been ‘piv­ot­ing’, so to speak, to main­tain pur­pose, rein­vent self, stay rel­e­vant and dy­namise fore­sight to muster in­ter­est, cos­set ap­peal and em­bla­zon in­tegri­ty. Their im­pact mat­ters! Here­in lies the Pow­er of Four Score.

In the fi­nal analy­sis, their longevi­ty, as valid con­trib­u­tors, tes­ti­fies to the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of their in­flu­ence and the worth and qual­i­ty of their ser­vice to hu­man de­vel­op­ment, hav­ing gone past the nom­i­nal span of hu­man life, ‘three score and ten’.

The Pow­er of Four Score ex­alts not on­ly their sur­vival sta­mi­na, through their ir­re­press­ible con­vic­tion but ho­n­ours their stay­ing pow­er, and above all, dig­ni­fies their iden­ti­ty brand­ing prowess as wor­thy sound­ing boards for re­shap­ing our world, just as they did back in their own com­ing-of-age bi­ogra­phies.

Am­pli­fy­ing the pow­er - the pow­er of game-chang­ing oc­to­ge­nar­i­ans, is op­por­tune at this time that we cel­e­brate 60 years as an In­de­pen­dent na­tion and 46 years since our Par­lia­ment first con­vened un­der a Re­pub­lic sta­tus.

ALL are wel­come to ex­pe­ri­ence this jour­ney through the eyes of those who have ar­rived and sur­passed ~ THE POW­ER OF FOUR SCORE.

Sun­day 25th Sep­tem­ber, 2022 Hy­att Re­gency Trinidad. 4:00 p.m.

To Reg­is­ter call: 321-8064 or email o2nfoun­da­tion@out­look.com

There is LIM­IT­ED SEAT­ING, so book your seats now.

There is no cov­er ad­mis­sion.

Sim­ply do­ing our part to pre­serve our Na­tion­al Her­itage and Great­ness.

Hazel Brown

For decades, Hazel Brown has been the me­dia’s go-to per­son on women’s rights and has been a vo­cal ad­vo­cate for con­sumer rights. Through her or­gan­i­sa­tion the Net­work of NGOs for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, she has brought pub­lic at­ten­tion to a num­ber of gen­der is­sues, in­clud­ing the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of women in the po­lit­i­cal process. In 2011 she was ho­n­oured with the Medal for the De­vel­op­ment of Women (Gold) for her ded­i­cat­ed work in ad­vanc­ing women’s rights and is­sues.

She has spent at least four decades in civic ac­tivism, on is­sues rang­ing from women’s health to com­mu­ni­ty and con­sumer rights, from sus­tain­able food pro­vi­sion, in­clud­ing so­lar cook­ing, to women’s po­lit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion and lead­er­ship.

Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att

She is a cer­ti­fied Psy­cho­me­t­ric Test­ing spe­cial­ist and has been trained in Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence coun­sel­ing and in Ex­ec­u­tive Coach­ing by the In­sti­tute of Ex­ec­u­tive Coach­ing in Cal­i­for­nia, USA. In 2001 she got her M.Sc. (Edu) from CSUH, spe­cial­iz­ing in on­line ed­u­ca­tion and adult learn­ing, and in 2012 was award­ed an LLD (Doc­tor­ate of Laws – hon­oris causa) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

She gave as­sis­tance to em­ploy­ers’ fed­er­a­tions through­out the Caribbean in in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions, man­age­ment train­ing, labour leg­is­la­tion and hu­man re­source de­vel­op­ment.

She is deeply in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment work, serv­ing on the Boards of Di­rec­tors of Ser­vol, the Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety/Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, the Trinidad and” To­ba­go Coali­tion for the Rights of the Child, Child­line, and the Caribbean Cen­ter for Hu­man Rights.

Dr. Yvonne Bobb-Smith

She is an in­de­pen­dent writer and ed­i­tor. She is a coun­sel­lor, ed­u­ca­tor and a mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hu­man­ists As­so­ci­a­tion. She is an aca­d­e­m­ic and au­thor of the com­pelling book, ‘I know who I am: A Caribbean Woman’s Iden­ti­ty in Cana­da’. She is very pas­sion­ate. She has been a lec­tur­er, for a num­ber of years, us­ing crit­i­cal think­ing to guide her stu­dents to recog­nise, re­spect and cel­e­brate di­ver­si­ty. Her pas­sion for vol­un­teerism in com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment has been fo­cused on so­cial jus­tice ac­tivism and women’s em­pow­er­ment.

Fer­oza (Rose) Mo­hammed

Fer­oza Mo­hammed, a 2006 Hum­ming­bird Medal (Gold) re­cip­i­ent for mer­i­to­ri­ous pub­lic ser­vice, de­scribes her­self as Mus­lim, Trinida­di­an, pas­sion­ate, sim­ple, hum­ble, ser­vice-ori­ent­ed, em­pa­thet­ic and tol­er­ant. Most of all, Rose em­bod­ies the elu­sive spir­it of the trans­for­ma­tive leader.

She is the Founder of the Na­tion­al Mus­lim Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, more than 20 years ago, and shared her ex­per­tise serv­ing with sev­er­al NGOs and com­mu­ni­ty groups. She is the au­thor of Speak Out which cours­es her in­ter­pre­ta­tion of con­tem­po­rary Mus­lim women’s ac­tivism. Mo­hammed takes pride in the fact that she is a West­ern Mus­lim. “I do not pre­tend that I have come from the Mid­dle East. I am an In­do-Trinida­di­an and I dress, act and en­joy Is­lam in this coun­try’s cul­ture and en­vi­ron­ment.

Rhona Bap­tiste

Re­tired ed­u­ca­tor, for­mer jour­nal­ist and ed­i­tor, she is the au­thor of sev­er­al books, span­ning bi­ogra­phies, cook­books and dic­tio­nar­ies of Trinidad and To­ba­go cul­ture. She was an Eng­lish teacher to col­lege stu­dents in main­land Chi­na for over a decade. Cur­rent­ly, she hosts a pod­cast called Se­nior Mo­ments, doc­u­ment­ing per­spec­tives from se­nior na­tion­als.

In ad­di­tion to these trail­blaz­ers, some of the oth­er speak­ers shar­ing their wis­dom are :

- Ger­ard Hadeed

- Al­bert La Veau

- Earl Lovelace

- Dr Ed­mund Chame­ly

- Fer­die Fer­reira