This year’s ob­ser­vances of the First Peo­ples Day of Recog­ni­tion and Her­itage Week of Ac­tiv­i­ties is ex­pect­ed to in­clude a vir­tu­al sym­po­sium and the screen­ing of a doc­u­men­tary on the First Peo­ples.

Con­fir­ma­tion has come from Chief of the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty, Ri­car­do Bharath Her­nan­dez, who notes that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has had an im­pact on planned ac­tiv­i­ties.

“Due to COVID-19 Re­stric­tions in terms of lim­it­ed num­bers, the Com­mu­ni­ty is un­able to do ma­jor pub­lic events as ob­served in the past,” he ex­plains in an of­fi­cial news re­lease.

First Peo­ples Her­itage Week will be ob­served be­tween Fri­day 9 and Wednes­day 14 Oc­to­ber 2020.  The Theme for this year’s ac­tiv­i­ties is “Our First Peo­ples – Lead­ing us To­ward En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sound and Sus­tain­able Com­mu­ni­ties”.

This year marks the 20th year the San­ta Rosa First Peo­ples Com­mu­ni­ty will be hav­ing cel­e­bra­tions.

“The Day of Recog­ni­tion was grant­ed in 2000,” Chief Bharath-Her­nan­dez notes. “It is not a Pub­lic Hol­i­day as for oth­er eth­nic­i­ties, but is to bring aware­ness to the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion of the pres­ence of In­dige­nous/First Peo­ples in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He adds: “The First Peo­ples are close­ly con­nect­ed to Moth­er Earth and all the life she sus­tains.  Of ben­e­fit to the mod­ern world are the Caribbean In­dige­nous lessons on lis­ten­ing to, and learn­ing from the nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ment, re­vis­it­ing our re­la­tion­ship with the cre­ation, and build­ing self-sus­tain­ing agri­cul­ture.”

In 2020, the cel­e­bra­tion of the First Peo­ples Day of Recog­ni­tion and Her­itage Week of Ac­tiv­i­ties will in­clude:

●     Rit­u­al at the Red House in homage to the An­ces­tors – Fri­day 9th Oc­to­ber

●     Wa­ter Rit­u­al at the First Peo­ples Her­itage Site, Ari­ma – Sun­day 11th Oc­to­ber

●     Vir­tu­al Sym­po­sium on the Theme : “Our First Peo­ples – Lead­ing us To­ward En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly Sound and Sus­tain­able Com­mu­ni­ties" – Mon­day 12th Oc­to­ber

●     Smoke Cer­e­mo­ny at the Hyari­ma Mon­u­ment – Wednes­day 14th Oc­to­ber, the Day of Recog­ni­tion

●     Doc­u­men­tary on the First Peo­ples – Wednes­day 14th Oc­to­ber, the Day of Recog­ni­tion