A sched­uled box­ing bout be­tween So­ca artiste Swap­pi (Mar­vin Davis) and fel­low singer Trinidad Kil­la (Kern Joseph) next month, will re­in­force the des­per­a­tion by the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty, to bring an end to the un­want­ed vi­o­lence among mem­bers of the de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties in T&T.

The bout is card­ed ten­ta­tive­ly for Thanks­giv­ing Day in the Unit­ed States which will be cel­e­brat­ed on No­vem­ber 25 and pro­mot­er Randy Glas­gow, a well-known pro­mot­er in the lo­cal box­ing com­mu­ni­ty, said the event will be streamed live to the T&T and Caribbean di­as­po­ra in the Unit­ed States, de­scrib­ing it as an event sim­i­lar to what was done by box­ing icon Floyd May­weath­er to sev­er­al youtu­bers, re­cent­ly.

In the past months, the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty caught na­tion­al at­ten­tion with un­sanc­tioned box­ing bouts tak­ing place amidst large gath­er­ings which high­light­ed a per­ceived bla­tant dis­re­gard for the COVID-19 pro­to­cols out­lined by the Min­istry of Health.

In­stead, how­ev­er, it turned out to be a show by the com­mu­ni­ty that it is fed up with the un­nec­es­sary killings of the na­tion's young peo­ple, cou­pled with at­tempts to chart a fu­ture for the young peo­ple in that com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties in T&T.

En­ter­tain­er Swap­pi, a res­i­dent of the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty told Guardian Me­dia Sports: "What we're try­ing to do as a body and as one of the mem­bers in the Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty is for guys to put down the guns and put on the gloves. So if you have a beef with some­one from an­oth­er area, in­stead of look­ing to gun down each oth­er, put on the gloves and just cuff it out. Then you tap each oth­er on the backs, shake hands and walk home alive."

Both Swap­pi and Trinidad Kil­la have put their so­ca ses­sions on hold for now and have be­gun their prepa­ra­tion to en­ter the box­ing ring, not with the sole in­ten­tion of de­ter­min­ing a win­ner, but to en­sure that the young peo­ple in the de­pressed ar­eas in T&T will have a fu­ture.

Swap­pi, the singer of a num­ber of hits such as 'God is ah Tri­ni', not­ed: "On the back of the call to put down the guns and pick up the gloves, we want to add some funds to it to get fe­males in­volved. This is tak­ing T&T by storm, even in the Caribbean as Grena­da is get­ting in­volved, we see Ja­maica get­ting in­volved, even New York is get­ting in­volved, so what we're do­ing here is tak­ing it to the next lev­el.

"We want to get the WBC (World Box­ing Coun­cil) in­volved, we want to give prizes, we want to have belts, we want to have schol­ar­ships for young box­ers and young tal­ent, so it's not just about putting down the guns and pick­ing up the gloves, we want a fu­ture out of this as well for young peo­ple.

"So we're call­ing out celebri­ties now to get in­volved to start and lead by ex­am­ple."

The en­ter­tain­er, de­spite tak­ing the fore­front, has ad­mit­ted that a num­ber of key fig­ures in the com­mu­ni­ty have been lead­ing the charge for the past years, such as, re­fer­ring to them by their nick­names, 'Big­gs', 'Vincedan' and 'Steel'.

The ini­tia­tive has been pick­ing up speed Glas­gow said as dis­cus­sions with the T&T Box­ing Board of Con­trol, the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion which deal with am­a­teur box­ing in the coun­try, the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, and the Min­istry of Health, with the in­ten­tions of do­ing the right thing first be­fore they move for­ward.

"It may be a lit­tle pre­ma­ture to say any­thing be­cause we are in dis­cus­sion on a kind of two-fold is­sue which would be Swap­pi, be­ing an en­ter­tain­er and Mr Kil­la be­ing an en­ter­tain­er, as the ob­jec­tive is to ask the youth to put down the guns and take up the gloves. We like the con­cept and we feel we're well-po­si­tioned to help so we're in dis­cus­sion to take the thing to an­oth­er lev­el.

"So what you saw with the lit­tle ex­hi­bi­tion fights, well the next time you see a fight, it will be un­der the aus­pices of one of the na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, you're gonna see a re­al box­ing ring, guys do­ing what is nec­es­sary with an am­bu­lance on stand­by etc. And at the same time, the guys with­in the Sea Lots area have seen a prop­er­ty that can be con­vert­ed in­to a full-time gym etc. The big­ger pic­ture will be to put in the area a per­ma­nent gym where the guys can learn to box, har­ness their skills and so forth on a full-time ba­sis."

The Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty will reach out to Min­is­ter of Sports Sham­fa Cud­joe for as­sis­tance in se­cur­ing a par­cel of land that they in­tend to use to con­struct the box­ing gym.

He said if the land is grant­ed be­fore the No­vem­ber fight be­tween the en­ter­tain­ers, then they will hold the fight there, but if they do not get the land, the fight will be staged ei­ther at the NA­PA (Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, Port-of-Spain), or an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty where all the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions can be car­ried out.