Last Sat­ur­day, Pan on D Av­enue, on Ari­api­ta Av­enue (Port-of-Spain) was, for a few hours, an oa­sis of peace of mind and joy.

Full cred­it must go to the Gar­cia fam­i­ly, friends, sup­port­ers and the Wood­brook/St James As­so­ci­a­tion. With a vis­i­ble Po­lice pres­ence, open to the pub­lic, and fea­tur­ing the best steel­bands—small, medi­um and large from across the length and breadth of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The at­ten­dance and par­tic­i­pa­tion were a show­case of the best ver­sion of the rain­bow- Trinidad and To­ba­go. Trinidad and To­ba­go is not the bar­ren waste­land of crooks, thieves, cor­rupt politi­cians, mis­cre­ants and the failed state that those who have lost all hope will have us be­lieve.

Pan on D Av­enue’s suc­cess is found­ed on re­spect for the peo­ple who live in Wood­brook. The pic­ture that some paint of Wood­brook as a mid­dle-class en­clave of priv­i­leged and en­ti­tled peo­ple who are an­ti-youth, cul­ture, mu­sic and en­joy­ment is an un­fair and false nar­ra­tive. Pan on D Av­enue showed yet again that treat­ed with re­spect and giv­en a say Wood­brook loves the steel­pan, a good lime and time, and is hap­py to wel­come vis­i­tors and busi­ness. Once treat­ed with re­spect they are hap­py to col­lab­o­rate and co­op­er­ate.

The Gar­cia fam­i­ly host­ed the event in ho­n­our of the late Cleve­land Gar­cia, a for­mer lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor who was in­flu­en­tial in es­tab­lish­ing Pan on D Av­enue and worked tire­less­ly to en­sure that each of the per­form­ing steel­bands, was treat­ed with re­spect.

This week the twin-is­land Re­pub­lic will cel­e­brate In­de­pen­dence Day—Thurs­day, Au­gust 31- we are 61 years an in­de­pen­dent na­tion. As we re­flect, how do we feel - hope­ful or hope­less? Most peo­ple will look at the ex­ter­nal and that will guide their an­swer. If they look at life on the whole through an op­ti­mistic lens they will feel a sense of hope. Mo­ments in time such as Pan on D Av­enue give hope and in­spi­ra­tion.

Af­ter do­ing my flag-wav­ing cameo for Har­vard Harps—the steel­band arm of the Har­vard Club. Har­vard Harps was giv­en the num­ber four play­ing po­si­tion. This ear­ly ap­pear­ance al­lowed for full en­joy­ment of the Pan on the Av­enue ex­pe­ri­ence as I was able to hear all the bands dur­ing my chip and walk down the av­enue.

A num­ber of peo­ple seized up­on the op­por­tu­ni­ty to stop me to ex­press their con­cerns about the state of sport in the coun­try —their dis­ap­point­ment with TeamT­TO’s per­for­mance at the World Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onship in Bu­dapest, foot­ball, crick­et etc. Giv­en the ever-present sweet sound of steel­pan mu­sic, it was dif­fi­cult to car­ry on any long con­ver­sa­tion. But the point was made - peo­ple are wor­ried about what will hap­pen in the fu­ture and next year at the Paris Olympics.

If I were to sum­marise the gist of my re­spons­es—it would be “Your con­cern is valid”. The so­lu­tion is sim­ple but yet com­plex. It’s a con­ver­sa­tion for an­oth­er day and time. For now, en­joy Pan on D Av­enue.”

As I re­flect on In­de­pen­dence Day 2023 and what should be the Things That Mat­ter mes­sage it would be Trans­for­ma­tion. We need to have a trans­for­ma­tive at­ti­tude and mind­set. If we want to hear our pan ver­sion of the na­tion­al an­them played at fu­ture glob­al sports events we must use a trans­for­ma­tion mind­set as the cat­a­lyst. There are al­so lessons from the Pan on D Av­enue suc­cess that sports can learn from.