Nigel Teles­ford

Thou­sands of stu­dents across Trinidad and To­ba­go re­cent­ly cel­e­brat­ed their SEA re­sults and are cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion, even as the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (MC­CD) is invit­ing them to chan­nel their en­er­gy, cre­ativ­i­ty and tal­ents in­to one of the coun­try’s most re­spect­ed cul­tur­al pro­grammes.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s Best Vil­lage Tro­phy Com­pe­ti­tion en­ters its 63rd year with what the Min­istry de­scribes as “one of its strongest youth-fo­cused ini­tia­tives to date”, ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties for young writ­ers, film­mak­ers, per­form­ers and cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors to show­case their abil­i­ties while strength­en­ing the com­mu­ni­ties they call home.

The ini­tia­tive comes at an ide­al time for many young peo­ple, with schools ei­ther al­ready closed or prepar­ing to close for the va­ca­tion. Or­gan­is­ers be­lieve the ex­pand­ed itin­er­ary of­fers stu­dents a mean­ing­ful out­let be­yond the class­room, en­cour­ag­ing team­work, cre­ativ­i­ty, lead­er­ship and healthy com­pe­ti­tion while deep­en­ing their ap­pre­ci­a­tion for T&T’s rich cul­tur­al her­itage.

That youth-cen­tred vi­sion moves in­to full fo­cus on Mon­day, when the Ju­nior Best Vil­lage and Ex­trav­a­gan­za of­fi­cial­ly gets un­der way, plac­ing the spot­light square­ly on the next gen­er­a­tion of cul­tur­al prac­ti­tion­ers.

Pre­sent­ed un­der the theme “The Heart of Cul­ture”, this year’s Best Vil­lage project builds on last year’s “Safe­guard­ing the Lega­cy” cam­paign, which ex­pand­ed youth par­tic­i­pa­tion through new Folk Pre­sen­ta­tion cat­e­gories in­clud­ing Dru­mol­o­gy, Folk Song Med­ley and French-In­flu­enced Dance, while strength­en­ing the Ju­nior Best Vil­lage ini­tia­tive across all ten coun­ties and rein­tro­duc­ing To­ba­go’s Ju­nior Best Vil­lage through two ded­i­cat­ed camps.

This year, the MC­CD is tak­ing that evo­lu­tion even fur­ther.

In ad­di­tion to tra­di­tion­al folk per­for­mances, the line-up now em­braces cre­ative dis­ci­plines that res­onate with to­day’s gen­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing Scriptwrit­ing and Short Film com­pe­ti­tions, while Vil­lage Olympics and Folk Games en­cour­age broad­er com­mu­ni­ty par­tic­i­pa­tion and cel­e­brate the tra­di­tions that have unit­ed vil­lages for gen­er­a­tions.

Young women will al­so con­tin­ue to de­vel­op their lead­er­ship skills through the Miss La Reine Rivé Com­pe­ti­tion, which fo­cus­es not on­ly on pre­sen­ta­tion but on com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, cul­tur­al knowl­edge and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment, prepar­ing par­tic­i­pants to be­come am­bas­sadors for their vil­lages and the na­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the MC­CD, “the vi­sion of Best Vil­lage is to cham­pi­on the in­te­grat­ed vil­lage con­cept through­out T&T by part­ner­ing with com­mu­ni­ties to im­prove qual­i­ty of life while pre­serv­ing and pass­ing on the tra­di­tions that de­fine the na­tion’s iden­ti­ty.”

While the com­pe­ti­tion proud­ly cel­e­brates its 63-year lega­cy, of­fi­cials say the fu­ture of Best Vil­lage de­pends on en­sur­ing young peo­ple see them­selves re­flect­ed in the pro­gramme —not sim­ply as spec­ta­tors, but as sto­ry­tellers, per­form­ers, cre­ators and fu­ture cus­to­di­ans of the coun­try’s cul­tur­al her­itage.

The Best Vil­lage sched­ule con­tin­ues through­out the va­ca­tion pe­ri­od, with the na­tion­wide Clean and Beau­ti­fy Cam­paign con­clud­ing on Ju­ly 10, fol­lowed by the Ju­nior Best Vil­lage and Ex­trav­a­gan­za from Ju­ly 13 to 24. En­tries for the Scriptwrit­ing and Short Film com­pe­ti­tions close on Ju­ly 31, be­fore the Vil­lage Olympics and Folk Games on Au­gust 15 and the Best of Best Vil­lage Grand Show on Au­gust 22. The timetable cul­mi­nates around Re­pub­lic Day with the Miss La Reine Rivé Com­pe­ti­tion, cel­e­brat­ing young women who em­body lead­er­ship, cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice.

For more than six decades, Best Vil­lage has pre­served the folk­lore, mu­sic, dance, the­atre, cui­sine and tra­di­tions of T&T. This year, how­ev­er, the MC­CD hopes it will al­so in­spire a new gen­er­a­tion to dis­cov­er that cul­ture is not sim­ply some­thing to in­her­it; it is some­thing to shape, cel­e­brate and car­ry for­ward.

As the school year ends and the va­ca­tion be­gins, the in­vi­ta­tion is clear: the fu­ture of T&T’s cul­ture starts now, and it starts with our young peo­ple.