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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Tuco takes calypso to schools

by

Radhica De Silva
2455 days ago
20181019
Edwin ‘Crazy’ Ayoung  sings the mighty Sparrow’s classic calypso Education to Couva South Government Primary School pupils, at the Couva Public Library during  launch of Tuco South Central Zone Interactive Workshop in celebrations of Calypso History Month yesterday.

Edwin ‘Crazy’ Ayoung sings the mighty Sparrow’s classic calypso Education to Couva South Government Primary School pupils, at the Couva Public Library during launch of Tuco South Central Zone Interactive Workshop in celebrations of Calypso History Month yesterday.

Kristian De Silva

The Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans’ Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) be­lieves ca­lyp­so can be used to re­duce ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy and im­prove com­mu­ni­ca­tion among stu­dents in the na­tion’s schools.

Dur­ing the launch of a pro­gramme at the Na­tion­al Li­brary in Cou­va yes­ter­day, TU­CO south-cen­tral chair­man Steve Pas­cal, aka Ras Kom­man­da, said his or­gan­i­sa­tion planned to hold ca­lyp­so work­shops with stu­dents to keep the art form alive.

Say­ing the event was part of ca­lyp­so his­to­ry month, Pas­cal said it was some­thing that ra­dio sta­tions had de­cid­ed not to pro­mote.

“We want to take ca­lyp­so to schools. I do not be­lieve that ca­lyp­so is dy­ing. If you look at the ju­nior work­shops you will see tal­ent and re­alise that ca­lyp­so is very much alive.

“We have been keep­ing the fire burn­ing. To­day we start at the li­brary in Cou­va and we will be go­ing from school-to-school,” Pas­cal said.

How­ev­er, Cou­va Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Hen­ry Awong said stu­dents were more in­clined to­wards so­ca rather than ca­lyp­so. Say­ing both ca­lyp­so and so­ca should be used in school as a means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Awong said this will def­i­nite­ly re­duce ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy.

“Ca­lyp­so can al­so be used as a method of teach­ing and get­ting mes­sages across. The book the­o­ry does not al­ways work. Tu­co is do­ing a good job in terms of en­cour­ag­ing ca­lyp­so in schools,” Awong said.

He al­so said ca­lyp­soes can be used to doc­u­ment his­to­ry, which will serve as a me­men­to for gen­er­a­tions to come.

“It will al­so en­cour­age stu­dents to be more open about ex­press­ing them­selves,” Awong said.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Ed­win “Crazy” Ay­oung said the ini­tia­tive was be­ing fund­ed sole­ly Tu­co but said he hopes once the econ­o­my be­comes more buoy­ant the Gov­ern­ment will of­fer as­sis­tance.

“We are strug­gling right now but when the econ­o­my builds back up the Gov­ern­ment will get mon­ey to fund ini­tia­tives like these,” Ay­oung said.

Bring­ing his two Sun­shine awards to show the stu­dents of Cou­va South Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry school, Ay­oung said ca­lyp­so singing was grat­i­fy­ing, adding that he was will­ing to show stu­dents how they could turn their po­ems in­to melody.


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