KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The climb up 100 Steps has al­ways test­ed the legs, but now it’s catch­ing the eye as well.

Once a moss-cov­ered stretch known more for its burn than its beau­ty, the San Fer­nan­do stair­case has been re­born in bold strokes of red, white and black, draw­ing a steady stream of vis­i­tors ea­ger to pause, pose and take it all in.

Though pop­u­lar­ly known as 100 Steps, the pedes­tri­an link be­tween Mount Mo­ri­ah Road and Alexan­der Road ac­tu­al­ly com­pris­es about 135 steps.

Sec­tions of the stair­case now dis­play the colours of the na­tion­al flag along­side cul­tur­al im­agery, cre­at­ing a strik­ing vi­su­al that has been at­tract­ing fit­ness en­thu­si­asts and vis­i­tors alike.

The project was con­cep­tu­alised and dri­ven by busi­ness­man Musa Ra­haman, who fre­quent­ly us­es the steps for ex­er­cise.

Fund­ed pri­mar­i­ly through his fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­nies, Hide­out Signs and Ra­haman Up­hol­stery Sup­plies Ltd, the ini­tia­tive was com­plet­ed with­in a short pe­ri­od with sup­port from res­i­dents and the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, which car­ried out mi­nor re­pair works, in­clud­ing fix­ing cracks.

“I come to the steps of­ten. I ac­tu­al­ly start­ed to come more in Jan­u­ary. I took a self­ie at the bot­tom of the stairs and was look­ing at the pic­ture, and I saw it was just moss. It was not look­ing good at all, and I was just like, you know, this is a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to do some­thing on the stairs,” Ra­haman said.

He said in­spi­ra­tion came from sim­i­lar stair­cas­es he en­coun­tered dur­ing trav­els to Turkey and Colom­bia, where na­tion­al im­agery is promi­nent­ly dis­played.

“You don’t see it un­less you go to a Gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tion, so I got my guys to do a de­sign and sub­mit­ted it to the City Cor­po­ra­tion. They gave me the ap­proval, and they said they loved the de­sign.”

Ra­haman said he want­ed the space to go be­yond the na­tion­al flag, in­cor­po­rat­ing el­e­ments such as the steel­pan, tas­sa, moko jumbie and the hum­ming­bird to give vis­i­tors a cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

With the at­ten­tion the site has re­ceived, he said the re­sponse has ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions.

“It has gone vi­ral, and that is what I want­ed. I want­ed to bring aware­ness to San Fer­nan­do, to the steps and to Trinidad. I think we achieved that with just a lit­tle paint and hard work.”

Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, Dr Neil Go­sine, who at­tend­ed the launch, de­scribed the ini­tia­tive as a pos­i­tive ex­am­ple of com­mu­ni­ty col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“As you can see, it is a love­ly project re­vi­tal­is­ing the com­mu­ni­ty, and it is some­thing that oth­er con­stituen­cies can take pat­tern from, bring­ing res­i­dents and every­body to­geth­er, as well as the Gov­ern­ment.

He not­ed that while it was not a Gov­ern­ment project, such ini­tia­tives can con­tribute to com­mu­ni­ty-based tourism by draw­ing vis­i­tors and sup­port­ing small ven­dors in the area.

Spring­vale/Par­adise coun­cil­lor Naigum Joseph said he sup­port­ed the project when it was brought to the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, not­ing that the cor­po­ra­tion’s role was lim­it­ed due to fi­nan­cial con­straints.

While on­ly sec­tions of the stair­case have been trans­formed so far, Ra­haman has al­ready sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al for a sec­ond project, with hopes of ex­pand­ing the con­cept fur­ther once ad­di­tion­al spon­sor­ship is se­cured.

He said Ra­haman re­quired ap­proval rather than fund­ing, and the coun­cil backed the ini­tia­tive, with the cor­po­ra­tion un­der­tak­ing prepara­to­ry work on the steps.

Joseph added that af­ter the main de­sign was com­plet­ed, res­i­dents con­tributed by as­sist­ing with paint­ing oth­er ar­eas, re­flect­ing a spir­it of vol­un­teerism.

While on­ly sec­tions of the stair­case have been trans­formed so far, Ra­haman has al­ready sub­mit­ted a pro­pos­al for a sec­ond project, with hopes of ex­pand­ing the con­cept fur­ther once ad­di­tion­al spon­sor­ship is se­cured.