In­nis Fran­cis

The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny of T&T (NGC) San­fest launched its an­nu­al youth-in-per­form­ing-arts event at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (South­ern Cam­pus) last Thurs­day, cel­e­brat­ing its 49th an­niver­sary and its 2019 theme — A Star is Born.

NGC Se­nior Man­ag­er (Projects) Win­ston Bai­ley said the com­pa­ny stands com­mit­ted to spon­sor the cause, de­spite a de­cline in pupil par­tic­i­pa­tion in the com­pe­ti­tion. He is hope­ful for an in­crease in par­tic­i­pa­tion in 2019.

Each year, San­fest ho­n­ours pi­o­neers who made in­deli­ble con­tri­bu­tions to the arts and this year’s ho­n­ourees in­clude stilt walk­ing train­er Ju­nior Bis­nath and, posthu­mous­ly Dr Win­ston Bai­ley (The Mighty Shad­ow) and Ken “Pro­fes­sor” Philmore.

NGC has been sup­port­ing San­fest where pupils of pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools have found an av­enue to ex­press their tal­ents in the per­form­ing, vi­su­al lit­er­ary arts.

Bai­ley said, “We at NGC con­sid­er un­re­alised po­ten­tial an un­ac­cept­able loss for our coun­ty. For this rea­son, we make it a cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pri­or­i­ty to help match our na­tion’s young tal­ent with op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

He added that NGC first pledged sup­port to San­fest in 2003 and as­sumed ti­tle spon­sor­ship for the pro­duc­tion in 2013.

Bai­ley con­tin­ued: “While many have used the San­fest stage as a spring­board for ca­reers in the arts and oth­er fields, there are many oth­ers who missed or are miss­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties by not tak­ing full ad­van­tage of this plat­form. The num­ber of pri­ma­ry schools en­ter­ing the com­pe­ti­tion in­creased from 2017 to 2018, but the num­ber of par­tic­i­pants fell al­most by 20 per cent. Sec­ondary schools, both the num­ber of schools and stu­dents tak­ing part, fell year on year by near­ly 25 per cent.”

Bai­ley urged par­ents and teach­ers to con­tin­ue to en­cour­age pupils to ex­plore their artis­tic abil­i­ties as a po­ten­tial start to a ca­reer.

San­fest was found­ed in 1969 by James Lee Wah and has pro­duced house­hold names like Tor­rence Mo­hammed, Joyce Kir­ton Er­ic But­ler, Ron­dell Don­awa, Eu­ge­nie Joseph, Willi Chen and Avion Crooks.