Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Michelle Ben­jamin, has ex­tend­ed con­do­lences fol­low­ing the death of Ray­mond Ed­wards.

Ed­wards died on Wednes­day.

Ben­jamin said Ed­wards con­tributed to the arts and to Trinidad and To­ba­go and sup­port­ed artis­tic de­vel­op­ment in com­mu­ni­ties in South Trinidad, while par­tic­i­pat­ing in com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives and at­tend­ed cul­tur­al events.

“The Min­istry recog­nis­es that a thriv­ing cul­tur­al sec­tor is sus­tained not on­ly through pol­i­cy and in­sti­tu­tions but through in­di­vid­u­als who ac­tive­ly cham­pi­on the arts with­in their com­mu­ni­ties and the wider pub­lic. Mr. Ed­wards ex­em­pli­fied this role, as his life’s work un­der­scores the con­nec­tion be­tween cul­tur­al vi­tal­i­ty and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment as well as, the im­por­tance of pre­serv­ing and cel­e­brat­ing our cre­ative her­itage and he­roes,” Ben­jamin stat­ed.