BO­BIE-LEE DIXON

bo­bie-lee.dixon@guardian.co.tt

They are leav­ing their homes and fam­i­lies every day, brav­ing what could prob­a­bly be de­scribed as the world’s great­est con­ta­gion to date — the nov­el COVID-19.

There is no guar­an­tee they’d be spared the flames of this an­guish­ing virus, which has en­gulfed the globe, send­ing the world in­to may­hem and di­min­ish­ing the fam­i­ly tree.

These men and women on the front­line who don’t get a day off or the “lux­u­ry” of util­is­ing gov­ern­ments’ stay at home or­ders or cur­fews—last re­sort mea­sures in some in­stances, in­stat­ed to re­duce the spread of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and save lives, are our doc­tors, nurs­es, mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices, me­dia prac­ti­tion­ers and even jan­i­tors among a long list of oth­ers.

They, lumped up as es­sen­tial work­ers, are on the bat­tle­field car­ry­ing this bur­den on their shoul­ders, en­sur­ing they keep the rest of the world afloat.

ANSA McAl recog­nis­es it’s not just their job or their du­ty but their hearts, com­pas­sion and com­mit­ment, that’s the dri­ving forces be­hind their will­ing­ness to risk their lives. It is with this rea­son­ing and its for­mu­la— ‘To­geth­er we’re a Fam­i­ly,’ in its hum­blest rel­ic of ap­pre­ci­a­tion, the con­glom­er­ate in col­lab­o­ra­tion with I Sup­port Our Ser­vices (ISOS) and Re­Think Trinidad, de­cid­ed to launch the ANSA McAl Na­tion­al Ap­plause Ini­tia­tive.

As ex­plained by group cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Sharon Bal­roop, the col­lab­o­ra­tive ini­tia­tive that will be of­fi­cial­ly held to­da˚˚y, at 10 am na­tion­wide, was join­ing the rest of the world in pay­ing trib­ute to coura­geous he­roes on the the­atre of war, fight­ing against the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic.

She said as it per­tains to these es­sen­tial work­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go the Na­tion­al Ap­plause Ini­tia­tive would pi­o­neer a na­tion­al out­pour­ing of grat­i­tude com­men­su­rable with this un­prece­dent­ed bi­o­log­i­cal mon­stros­i­ty.

“It is the mo­ment when we put our hands to­geth­er in a sound col­lec­tive sup­port to be heard across Trinidad and To­ba­go. Peo­ple, fol­low­ing so­cial dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols, can stand in their homes, gar­dens or bal­conies, and just clap or use a bot­tle or spoon, conch shell, mu­si­cal in­stru­ment or any­thing pos­i­tive to demon­strate sup­port,” Bal­roop sug­gest­ed.

Asked if the ini­tia­tive would be a one-off ven­ture, Bal­roop said it was a non-par­ti­san ini­tia­tive that should con­tin­ue long af­ter this thought-pro­vok­ing time faced by peo­ple all over the globe.

She added, though ANSA McAl, ISOS and Re­Think Trinidad were the prin­ci­pal ini­tia­tors of the Na­tion­al Ap­plause cam­paign, they were com­mu­ni­cat­ing with oth­er stake­hold­ers to en­cour­age them to utilise their plat­forms to share the mes­sage of sup­port.

“Draped in the pride of red, white and black, we ap­plaud those who sup­port our na­tion dur­ing these chal­leng­ing times. We will get through this when we stand strong to­geth­er,” Bal­roop as­sert­ed.