Some­times in life you have these mo­ments where you just step back and ob­serve your sur­round­ings. You take an ob­serv­er’s van­tage point and just ab­sorb the scenery and the buzz around you.

I had one of those mo­ments this Tues­day. My el­dest daugh­ter, Ghenere, well she was pro­duc­ing her Pink Gems seg­ment and I had the priv­i­lege to be on set with her as sup­port and yes, hav­ing a proud dad mo­ment.

As a fam­i­ly, we al­ways move as a team, the whole band­wag­on. So every­one had their role on Tues­day in sup­port­ing Ghenere and her Women of El­e­gance Team, with Pink Gems.

Pink Gems is an an­nu­al Sto­ry Telling Pro­duc­tion—Breast Can­cer ini­tia­tive put to­geth­er by Women of El­e­gance (my daugh­ter’s foun­da­tion). This marked the fourth year in ex­is­tence. Every year dur­ing the Breast Can­cer Aware­ness Month, Pink Gems would have a pro­duc­tion.

The Pink Gems team give women who are breast can­cer sur­vivors of Trinidad and To­ba­go an op­por­tu­ni­ty to share their sto­ries. A voice and a tes­ti­mo­ny that has res­onat­ed on lives and hearts world­wide. It is so pow­er­ful that it grants fam­i­lies who are tun­ing in, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be a part of these women’s jour­neys, cre­at­ing life-chang­ing mo­ti­va­tion­al con­nec­tions while help­ing them through their “cur­rent sea­son.”

This year, Women of El­e­gance want­ed to fo­cus not just on the sto­ries of the sur­vivors but al­so the sto­ries and the ex­pe­ri­ences of the fam­i­ly mem­bers who lost a loved one — recog­nis­ing the need to help the world through grief by giv­ing hope and shar­ing from the faith­ful hearts of sur­vivors.

The op­por­tu­ni­ty to see the trans­for­ma­tion, the team­work, the love and the cre­ativ­i­ty all com­ing to­geth­er was in­deed re­ward­ing.

The team ex­hib­it­ed a very high de­gree of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices, as they con­vert­ed the stu­dio spaces in­to the soft pink am­bi­ence, high­light­ing the ef­fect and the po­et­ry of Pink Gems. It was ab­solute­ly mind-blow­ing. To me, through the eyes of a novice, it was a meta­mor­pho­sis of true ded­i­ca­tion and tal­ent at its best.

I want to sin­gle out Mr Josh Rud­der. Many would’ve re­mem­bered him from his tenure at COTT and now he’s part of the ex­ec­u­tive at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Caribbean. He has had and con­tin­ues to have a long and il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try in T&T and be­yond, mak­ing quite a name for him­self in his ac­com­plish­ments world­wide. Rud­der, of the TO­VA Group, part­nered with Women of El­e­gance this year, and of­fered the use of their stu­dios in San­ta Cruz. Dur­ing the evening, Josh and I had a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­con­nect af­ter some time and we drilled in­to some very mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions and con­ver­sa­tions as the evening un­fold­ed in­to dusk and then in­to night­fall.

It was very re­as­sur­ing to know that men like Josh, with that vi­sion and pas­sion to see and ef­fect pos­i­tive change and trans­for­ma­tion, are still around and will­ing to take the risk for coun­try.

So as the Pink Gems team did their thing and con­duct­ed their in­ter­views, both Josh and I went to task on many top­ics and cur­rent af­fairs, analysing and ar­tic­u­lat­ing pos­i­tive de­posits of need­ed change in all spheres of con­cern.

Pink Gems made its mark on Tues­day. Lives were touched and sto­ries were told. Tes­ti­monies were giv­en and mem­o­ries, al­though tear­ful, brought about hope and joy for many. In the midst of all of that, good con­ver­sa­tions with an old friend.

It would be re­miss of me if I didn’t take a time out to ac­knowl­edge those who chose to share their sto­ry.

Bran­don Ramkissoon and his sis­ter, Je­di­ah Je­re­mie, shared on the loss of their moth­er to breast can­cer. Two young, strong peo­ple who re­flect­ed on her mem­o­ries and the joy of her life. Her lega­cy and the pas­sion she in­stilled in both of them to re­main pos­i­tive, to re­main strong and to go forth and be vic­to­ri­ous. Us­ing Bran­don’s words, “It’s what mum­my would’ve want­ed.” They shared her sto­ry well. They were a great en­cour­age­ment to all.

Pa­tri­cia Bis­nath, a sur­vivor her­self, was a bub­ble of joy and pos­i­tive en­er­gy. She was so strong and en­cour­ag­ing. Her sto­ry of sur­vival is in­deed an en­cour­age­ment to all. Many lives are go­ing to be touched by Pa­tri­cia’s tes­ti­mo­ny. Many lives are go­ing to find hope and a will to sur­vive. Thank you Pa­tri­cia for shar­ing your sto­ry.

The en­tire Pink Gems team did a fab­u­lous job on Tues­day. Rais­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, ad­vanc­ing the agen­da and am­pli­fy­ing the aware­ness.

As I close this week’s piece, I want to salute and recog­nise the hard-work­ing team be­hind the Women of El­e­gance and Pink Gems. You por­trayed true peo­ple-cen­tred and ser­vant heart lead­er­ship, to pull it off.

Women of El­e­gance

and Pink Gems Team

1. Josh Rud­der - To­va Group (part­nered with Pink Gems this year),

2. Alexan­der Pho­tog­ra­phy- Pat­ter­son and Chad (Pro­duc­tion)

3. Do­minique Roy- (Pro­duc­tion As­sis­tant and Lo­gis­tics)

4. Zari­ah Joseph - (make­up)

5. Gheriel Heer­ah.- ( Pro­duc­tion As­sis­tant & Ed­i­tor)

6. Sound Vi­sion (Set Light­ing)

7. Pa­tri­cia Bis­nath - (Sur­vivor)

8. Bran­don Ramkissoon and Je­di­ah Je­re­mie - (lost their mum to Breast Can­cer)

Look out for these seg­ments on the Women of El­e­gance page soon on fb.