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football
and well-played alcohol will break down every social wall
From WM Herbert, Handmade (for the World
Summit of Arts and Culture, Newcastle UK
June 2006)
Dear Ken, Sir,
So a decade
after we fo-rum together - because you know for sure we share more than the
same initials and on the same programme at the World Summit of Arts and Culture
in Newcastle when you got a taste of the stuff Trini creativity is made of -
you coming for more, eh? On my home turf? Ah
drinking babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, ah
hear they importing you to we soil – ‘cause nothing cyar hide in we choonkey
lil island. Although we have no grapevine and grow no grapes, news, especially
if iz some cochoor, spread like crop season bushfire. The bacchanal and cankalang alone could drive
ah woman to drink. Ah drinking babash,
cause dey…
From the fire in
meh wire ah hear they bringing you and some other boys, just like they bringing
the IMF, to tell we about creativity and what to do with we education and how
to do creative business and about creative enterprise. As if we don’t know how
to do creative business.
Ah drinking
babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, you
think we Trinis don’t know creative business? You really don’t know how
creative we could get with we rum! We could take next people rum and bottle it
and say is we rum yes. A label over a label and look papaya - is your rum! That
is how creative we could get, here, Sir Ken boy. You might want to use that in
one of your speeches.
Ah drinking babash,
cause dey…
We have we own
kind of creative economy too and creative accounting and management that is
what they lorn in dem Institutes for higher, or hire, learning - I not sure which.
They growing creative managers and we still hoping they go ripen into some leaders.
Where else, eh, billions of dollars flowing in from oil, dey say, and all them
oil business in billions of dollars debt and they not thinking bout diversifying they still waiting for the next
oil boom, just like how as soon as Carnival done, they cyar wait fuh the next
one. Is like dat. That sounds like some creative sense to you? Oil tabanca to
fill a tabantruck. And the lil artist and writer still balancing a budget and
living without debt eh, so is tax and tax and tax we into debt and drink. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
Sr Ken, I know
you like to talk about enterprise. I could tell you about Enterprise. In fact I
will show you, when you come. In
Enterprise dem boys know creative pursuits eh. Guns, drugs, murder and mayhem. Dey
learn well. Wild wild west style just like in the movies they cyar practice
they trigger-happiness in, cause we doh have ah movie industry. So is practice on
the streets, day and night: bang! bang! Live movie action. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken, remember
the couple nail biting hours we shared watching the 2006 World Cup qualifiers in
front of that screen in the Newcastle/Gateshead caterpillar they call the arts
centre – we have one now too, we own arts centre that not only look like a
caterpillar, it have caterpillars and other termites crawling all over too, right smack in front
the Range as if to say is a bigger saga boy than the natural beauty of the Northern
Range. Crumbling like all them institutions law, parliament, education, all crumbling at the beams from termites and parasites 'cause the centre cannot hold. It open in 2009, three years after I return from the Summit, talk about cultural transference. You will see it when you come, if
you get time to step out of the higher-at place they keeping you nah, I could take you on an eye-opening LiTTour - a Journey Through the Landscapes of Fiction - although it staring you in your face is all fiction eh, no truth in that at all at all.
Ah drinking babash, cause
dey…
Sir Ken, boy,
your visit really send me down memory lane. When we was watching that football match
World Cup Qualifiers T&T vs UK 2006. I nearly chew-out the top
of all meh fingers after that first goal, hoping that we boys would at least
score one peeny-weeny goal against ye old Brits so I could ah tell the fo-rum the
next day when I presenting on MAS Culture what mas do fuh we! Well-qualified to
tell how we boys had some good babash that’s why they lick all-yuh good. Ah drinking babash, cause dey…
But just how they rig the match and give we
poor boys dat coonoomoonoo kindda liquor the Scots call ‘water of life’ ooskie,
so the boys played like coonoomoonoos. Is no different nah, is just so they rig
my presentation and I come with the best powerpoint with motion video of the
winning 2006 most colourful wining Carnival girls inserted in powerpoint even
before powerpoint had invented the movie insert feature – but the first world
didn’t have the new software to run it, at least that is what they say, as if I
could believe that the first world didn’t have the software and me from me from
a teeny weeny backward banana boat island have this technology. Ah drinking babash, cause dey …
Good thing I had
a back-up plan and walk with me rum for the fo-rum in the NewCastle caterpillar,
eh Sir Ken, boy. Because between you and me you never know how them boys would
perform. But we could export real creative ways of managing football funds eh –
arkse Jack, ah warn you, it go blow yuh mind. We creative fuh so. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
That day at the
summit when you and your boys stumbled out of the room, with two goals and well
at least I scored with some ‘well-played alcohol’ – ask WM Herbert who made
that poem for and on our fo-rum at the World Arts Summit where that line came
from.
football and well-played alcohol will break down every social wall
From WM Herbert, Handmade (for the World Summit of Arts and Culture, Newcastle UK June 2006)
Is we Trini rum
he talking ‘bout! It is true we didn’t win the world football qualifying match,
but we won the World Summit fete! Ah could tell you that because I had the
creative intelligence to pack meh bottle ah rum for the fo-rum! You have to
agree, that was pure genius to break down them social walls if not the glass
ceiling, eh! And it look like I help T&T qualify too cause at last now we
have you, Sir, come here and grace we with your knightly presence! After all
the times I have to go to talk to fo-rums in all yuh first world, tho not here,
eh, not here! But exchange is no robbery where creative enterprise is concerned
eh. Now you understand?
Ah drinking
babash, cause dey…
Sir Ken boy, to
tell you the truth, I really thought when I see the invitation from the World
Summit on Arts and Culture to talk, and me name list next to yours on the
programme, I thought that is why I was invited you know, to bring some Trini
rum for the fo-rum, so is the first thing I pack. And 9/11 rules didn’t kick in
yet so I could walk through immigration with it so bold face holding it in
front me, waving it like the national flag and all them immigration and customs
people through the Brit airport nodding and smiling maybe hoping for a sip.
Ah drinking babash cause dey…
I couldn’t bring
babash though. It was not just because of the airline rules and ye olde
mercantilist impulse to make everything indigenous like we own way of making we
own rum illegal. It is really because as a true daughter of the soil - eating
dirt, as they say, cause breaking that glass ceiling tough boy - I holding on
to me secret knowledge of babash-making because we like to keep we real
creative stuff hidden in the backyard nah. Ah
drinking babash ‘cause dey…
They importing
you and the boys to tell them how to be creative without a mind about parting
with their creatively-earned foreign exchange – easy come easy go.
Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
Who knows more
than me about how they killing creativity, eh, about passion eh, about living
yuh talent, about multiple intelligences eh? Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
Now we boys don’t
have not even a peeny eeny bit of curiosity to know the secret knowledge of
creating babash, after they kill the industry dead dead to feed a few pipers to
play some foreign tune for them. Those who have a lil curiosity want to know for
free, ask Spree, and still they wouldn’t listen. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
If you want to
know how to kill Trini creativity – Sir Ken boy – I know that is yur pet
subject and you want some local insights, I sharing, for free because in
T&T the arts is a freeco thing, only to laugh for an evening comedy show,
not to use to make education and law and social reengineering and to mean something
to we in we own image. Nah. We have to
hide it and practice it in secret – like drinking babash.
Is not just the
education system, nah, is how they stomp out we homemade rum and make it
illegal – the same way they make we marriage traditions and drum beating
traditions illegal, and plenty plenty thing that good for the grass roots – if yuh catch me drift – everything
grass roots illegal here, even grass. Dat’s why nobody take on the law. It
illegal to get married, it illegal to have sex, it illegal to smoke weed and
still everybody doing it. Just like we have laws against murders, laws against
incest, laws against violence and child abuse, laws against thiefing, and laws
against all kinds ah thing – and that eh stop nobody! Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Maybe they think
that as a daughter I shudda be tie up and tie de knot not realizing that is one
old law – and who take on the law here anyway eh – get married at 12, 14, 16 - not
me. I keep my focus on the instructions to go forth and multiply which I really
thought mean go fly off on this trip and dat trip and multiply intelligence,
with this idea and that idea, and follow this dream and that dream to teach
people about creativity and cultural industries and how to reengineer education
for self-esteem and to think for themselves and to value what they know and
what they have and appreciate they multiple intelligences – I really
thought that is what that meant yes: go forth and multiply. Ah
drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
I fly out because
I didn’t want to be stripped of me self-respect, left wandering in the street
like the lil ex-Mayor of Chaguanas, nah. We filling them lil girls head with
ambition that a Woman’s Place is in the House of Parliament and some of the
women we put in the top there only want your head cause they head filled with
being part of the old boys’ club. Sisterhood dead dead. That is what happen
when you put yourself up for public office here. You could turn into a raving
lunatic if you don’t have a stash ah babash, yes arkse ex-Mayor Natasha.
Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
As she find out
too, it turns out, I was wrong and I should ah stay home and mind baby and leave
them ambitions to the boys, like you, who they importing through the creative
cultural foreign stock exchange and stick with me home made backyard country
brew.
Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Although I not
from the Caroni, like everybody else who come here by boat my ancestors get rum
before they get pay, so this fo-rum thing in meh blood and I still could knock
back a good few like any of the boys at any fo-rum, mano-y-mano, shatter the
glass bottles if not the glass ceiling – you want a list ah the fo-rums in
which I scored fo-rum after fo-rum: Newcastle, South Africa, India, Malaysia, France,
Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina, Belize, Jamaica, Colombia, Mexico, Barcelona,
Scotland, Montreal … It reading like the World Cup qualifying list eh?
Ah
qualify for sure, drinking babash, ‘cause
dey…
When you come ah
go show you, Sir Ken, here at home we know where to find the real stuff. Is a
small island, nah. Everybody know where to find babash or guns or drugs, or who
kidnapping who for ransom and who planning to do for who, who doing prayers on
who head, who is the boys dealing, and trading and stacking organs and orange
juice in freezers – everybody and they lawyer know, but not the law – we call
it creative blindness because if you know yuh could get you light out, just so
just so. Ah drinking babash, ‘cause dey…
Sir Ken, you
will find out for yourself, eh. Here, everybody done know everything ahready.
All we want is a lil laugh and that’s why they invite you, so they could laugh
a lil bit. They done know that culture is a song and a dance and a comedy show
so everybody with a lil bit a creativity try to get into comedy because they
have to eat. Plain and simple. Culture is not about intelligences and policy
and curriculum development and conscience building, and social stability and
inclusion and management, and business. You mad or what? And is best they hear
it from you who doh really know dem so it could sound nice and distant and
theoretical and academic. You would be fine. Dey wouldn’t cut the mike on you
because you from foreign, as they do to me for talking the naked truth. Ah drinking Babash cause dey…
Sir Ken, you
would have a great time. You go come; you go go back home and say what a nice
people, who laugh plenty at all you jokes and make some ah they own jokes too,
and the rum flow like water and the babash hiding in the back room and you get a nice bit a foreign exchange people here
cyar even get to send they children who away to school. Ah drinking babash ‘cause dey…
When you leave
we could go back to blaming the old Brits for the mess we in although the Brits
using we creativity to teach creativity, and we with we own independent
institutions in we own self-determining nation – well is not we is dem to blame. Ah drinking babash, cause they…
If you want some
fresh material, for Port of Spain or even for them TED Talks you know where to find me, eh Sir Ken, boy, and say how-do-you-do-to-me girl Lizzie eh, and me famalee, the royalings, and if you have luggage space take these letters I have for she, please 'cause ah cyar afford the postage stamps. Ah drinking
babash, cause they…
If you want to
know the rest of the refrain, arkse that Rumbunctious Rumraj.
World
Summit repositions arts & culture
Clear
role in governance and sustainability defined
By Dr
Kris Rampersad
football and well-played alcohol
will break down every social wall.
From WM Herbert, Handmade
(For the World Summit of Arts and Culture, June 2006)
If culture is to be defined as the product of human
interactions,
the place of the human in a world traumatised by diminishing
social, environmental, political and equitable economic relations was at the
core of the World Summit on Arts and Culture.
Held in Newcastle/Gateshead, England from June 14 to 18, 2006
through sponsorship by the International Federation of Arts Councils and
Culture Agencies, the Arts Council of England and the Commonwealth Foundation,
the Summit saw arts and culture practitioners and activists in dialogue with
policy makers, planners and supporters.
In keeping with the theme “transforming people, transforming
lives,” some 500 Summit participants grappled with challenges of helping
Governments and decision makers to recognise the position of culture and the
arts in regenerating societies’ physical and social environments and economies.
Effectively, they invited revision in conceptualisation, approaches, and
methods that have so far dominated decision-making, which, in the general
division of labour functions and responsibilities, have left regeneration and
sustenance to the sciences, economics, politics and the hard-core world of
doers - not dreamers.
Skepticism that the arts has a place in this isn’t altogether
unfounded, given that artistic development has traditionally leaned on
philanthropy, the generosity of supporters, donors, endowments, and other the
like - polar opposites, surely, to, notions of sustainability.
But some 30 presenters outlined working examples of how, when
well-directed, the cultural industries can sustain societies: from use of
architecture to reduce delinquency in a district in Houston, to development of
a district in Ethiopia by indigenous craft, to how the Carnival festival from
Trinidad and Tobago has evolved to global proportions represented in some 150
countries around the world and involving a range of artistic talents and
skills. Participants were also exposed
to the UK’s Creative Partnerships that effected regeneration through art,
architecture, music, design, theatre and film. In Kielder, for example, art and
architecture such as the Belvedere and Skyspace combine with the local
landscape, riverscape and skyscape to bring the natural environment into
sharper human focus, while encouraging environmental protection and reviving
the district’s tourist economy.
From
an unchallenged premise that more people participate in culture, than vote, the
Summit asserted the potential of culture and the arts in providing for basic
human needs of food, shelter and clothing, while retaining its traditional role
in nourishing minds. In its easy capacity to support co-existence and
accommodate divergent views, polar opposites, diversity and difference through
its metaphors and similes, borrowings and samplings, and general artistry, arts
and culture were seen to hold key solutions to minimizing the negative impact
of the conflicts between economic development and sustainability, technological
advancement and traditional practices, nature and nurture that result in social
and economic inequalities, disempowerment, and ethnic strife.
The exchange of project and ideas for processes of execution, as
well as methods of quantifying input and outputs from arts and culture-based
projects were stimulating and inspiring. NewcastleGateshead proved the ideal
incubator for this global mishmash of thinkers and doers. De-hyphenated and brought together to create
one of the world’s most successful stories of the potential of arts and culture
for not only economic regeneration but social cohesion of “rival districts”,
these districts are now joined by the hip, as it were, in the Sage Centre where
the Summit was located. In all of this, participants found time to create a
World Choir and a Summit Song, A Poem - an extract from which is cited above -
a drama; share nail-biting moments of the FIFA World Cup, and take a sneak peak
into Hollywood’s Hogsworth, through the hospitality of the Duchess of
Northumberland at Alnwick Castle where parts of the JK Rowling’s Harry Potter
movies were filmed.
Trinidad author to chair UNESCO Education Commission
Dr Kris Rampersad, Trinidad and Tobago representative on UNESCO Executive Board, 2013 to 2017
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- The particular challenges of small island developing states (SIDS), and the particular realities of Trinidad and Tobago as a small island with a continental physical and natural heritage, require special focus within UNESCO programmes and budgets, according to recommendations presented by Dr Kris Rampersad, Trinidad and Tobago representative to the UNESCO executive board during its 196th session in Paris, France.
Rampersad was unanimously presented by colleagues of the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) and accepted by the executive board to chair the Education Commission at the upcoming 38th sessions of the UNESCO general assembly to take place in November.
The decision took place at the 196th session of the UNESCO executive board, on which Rampersad serves as the representative of Trinidad and Tobago. She has been unanimously elected to co-chair the executive board’s Programme and External Relations Commission for the three consecutive sessions since 2013.
The general assembly and the executive board are the two governing organs of UNESCO.
“These provide considerable opportunities to advance Trinidad and Tobago’s presence in UNESCO which is working to build a culture of peace and share our experiences and challenges in the region in this respect in the face of numerous challenges, including size and capacity as small island sovereign states,” she said.
Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh has commended Rampersad’s work on the UNESCO board and her upcoming chairmanship of Trinidad and Tobago, recognising the significant place Trinidad and Tobago has occupied within UNESCO, now celebrating its 70th anniversary.
The Trinidad and Tobago representative maintained a high level of participation and representation in the numerous activities of the executive board strengthening networks with representatives of SIDS, the Commonwealth, GRULAC, and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) within UNESCO.
She presented the Trinidad and Tobago national Leading for Literacy Now! project as a model approach to address challenges with literacy; and identified challenges identified in the allied National Commission Leading for Numeracy initiatives.
Leading for Literacy Now was a programme introduced during her term as chair of the National Commission (2011-2015) in conjunction with declaration of a Decade for Literacy for Trinidad and Tobago implemented by the Elizabeth Crouch-headed Education Committee of the National Commission.
It was inspired by UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova’s 10,000 Principal Leadership programme, with financial support from UNESCO, the ministry of education, the private sector and also represents a model UNESCO-public-private sector partnership initiative.
Rampersad has actively contributed to UNESCO’s efforts over the past two years in defining actions for programmes and budgets that will meet the needs of small island states; and suggested ways of deepening synergies across UNESCO programme areas of science, education, cultural heritage conservation and advancing the creative industries, and use of information and communications to achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness and cost savings.
She advocated the need to ensure balanced and equitable programme focus and allocations through the debates on UNESCO’s role in the UN post-2015 education agenda; UNESCO’s alignment with the Global Geo Parks initiative, protection of journalists, the centralisation of culture in development, and a deeper role of UNESCO Institute of Statistics in matters related to SIDS.
She further participated in UNESCO’s introduction of a new International Day of University Sports, the rights to learning without fear and making classrooms safe zones, facilitation of technical and vocational education and education in the digital age; the place of information and communication technologies to advance learning of persons with disabilities; developing global citizenship, among others.
Rampersad is an author and an independent media, cultural and literary development educator and consultant. She was appointed to the UNESCO executive board in 2013, following UNESCO elections in which Trinidad and Tobago polled the highest number of votes within the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (GRULAC).
The particular challenges of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), and the particular realities of Trinidad and Tobago as a small island with a continental physical and natural heritage, require special focus within UNESCO programmes and budgets.
This was among the recommendations presented by Dr Kris Rampersad, Trinidad and Tobago (TT) Representative to the UNESCO Executive Board during its 196th session in Paris, France.
Rampersad was presented by colleagues of the Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) and accepted by the Executive Board to chair the Education Commission at the upcoming 38th sessions of the UNESCO General Assembly to take place in November.
The decision took place at the 196th session of the UNESCO Executive Board, in which Rampersad serves as the TT Representative.
She has been elected to co-chair the Executive Board’s Programme and External Relations Commission for the three consecutive sessions since 2013 – 194th, 195th, and 196th.
The General Assembly and the Executive Board are the two governing organs of UNESCO.
“These provide considerable opportunities to advance Trinidad and Tobago’s presence in UNESCO which is working to build a culture of peace and share our experiences and challenges in the region in this respect in the face of numerous challenges, including size and capacity as small island sovereign states,” she said.
Education Minister Dr Tim Gopeesingh has commended D Rampersad’s work on the UNESCO Board and her upcoming chairmanship of TT, recognising the significant place TT has occupied within UNESCO, now celebrating its 70th anniversary.
The TT representative maintained a high level of participation and representation in the numerous activities of the Executive Board strengthening networks with representatives of SIDS, the Commonwealth, GRULAC, and CARICOM within UNESCO.
She presented the TT national Leading for Literacy Now! Project as a model approach to address challenges with literacy; and identified challenges identified in the allied National Commission Leading for Numeracy initiatives.
Leading for Literacy Now was a programme introduced during her term as Chair of the National Commission (2011-2015) in conjunction with declaration of a Decade for Literacy for Trinidad and Tobago implemented by the Elizabeth Crouch-headed Education Committee of the National Commission. It was inspired by UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova’s 10,000 Principal Leadership programme, with financial support from UNESCO, the Ministry of Education, the private sector and also represents a model UNESCO-public- private sector partnership initiative.
Rampersad has actively contributed to UNESCO’s efforts over the past two years in defining actions for programmes and budgets that will meet the needs of Small Island States; and suggested ways of deepening synergies across UNESCO programme areas of science, education, cultural heritage conservation and advancing the creative industries, and use of information and communications to achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness and cost savings.
She advocated the need to ensure balanced and equitable programme focus and allocations through the debates on UNESCO’s role in the UN post- 2015 education agenda; UNESCO’s alignment with the Global Geo Parks initiative, protection of journalists, the centralisation of culture in development, and a deeper role of UNESCO Institute of Statistics in matters related to SIDS.
She further participated in UNESCO’s introduction of a new International Day of University Sports, the rights to learning without fear and making classrooms safe zones, facilitation of technical and vocational education and education in the digital age; the place of information and communication technologies to advance learning of persons with disabilities; developing global citizenship, among others.
Rampersad is an author and an independent media, cultural and literary development educator and consultant.
She was appointed to the UNESCO Executive Board in 2013, following UNESCO elections in which TT polled the highest number of votes within the Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries.
Trinidad author to chair UNESCO Education Commission
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- The particular challenges of small island developing states , and the particular realities of Trinidad and Tobago as a small island with a continental physical and natural heritage, require special focus within UNESCO programmes and budgets, according to recommendations presented by Dr Kris Rampersad, Trinidad and Tobago representative to the UNESCO executive board during its 196th session in Paris, France. Rampersad was unanimously presented by colleagues of the Latin American and Caribbean Group and accepted by the executive board to chair the Education Commission at the upcoming 38th sessions of the UNESCO general assembly to take place in November.
Start the conversation, or Read more at Caribbean News Now!
Author and former T&T Guardian Sunday editor Dr Kris Rampersad says special focus should be give to small island states by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
Rampersad, who represented T&T at the Unesco Executive Board during its 196th session in Paris, said because of the challenges of small states, countries like T&T required special focus within Unesco programmes and budgets.
She suggested ways of “deepening synergies in the areas of science, education, cultural heritage conservation and advancing the creative industries, and use of information and communications to achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness and cost savings.”
Rampersad also said there was a need to ensure balanced and equitable programme focus and allocations through the debates on Unesco’s role in the UN post-2015 education agenda.
She also called for “Unesco’s alignment with the Global Geo Parks initiative, protection of journalists, the centralisation of culture in development, and a deeper role of Unesco Institute of Statistics in matters related to SIDs.”
Rampersad has also advocated the rights to learning without fear, making classrooms safe zones, facilitation of technical and vocational education in the digital age, helping the disabled with ICT and developing global citizenship.
Trinidad and Tobago vice-chairs UNESCO's programmes/external relations commission
PARIS, France -- Dr Kris Rampersad, Trinidad and Tobago’s representative to the UNESCO executive board, was elected unopposed as the vice-chair of UNESCO’s programmes and external services commission (PX) to the board for the second consecutive time. The PX Commission is one of two commissions of the UNESCO executive board and is charged with examining and directing UNESCO’s programmes. It is chaired by Porfirio Thierry Muñoz Ledo of Mexico.
Dr Kris Rampersad
Now chaired by Egypt’s Mohamed Sameh Amr, the 58-member executive board, currently in its 195th session in Paris, is one of three governing organs of UNESCO with the General Assembly and Secretariat. It is responsible for appraising and informing UNESCO’s work programme and budgets. This is the first year of Trinidad and Tobago’s term on the board since it was elected by the 2013 General Assembly, when it polled the highest number of votes among candidates for the Latin American and Caribbean (GRULAC) region.
Rampersad, a cultural heritage researcher, educator and multimedia journalist, is a former independent member of the consultative body of UNESCO Inter-Governmental Committee on Intangible Cultural Heritage, and chair of the Trinidad and Tobago National Commission for UNESCO.
She also serves on the advisory boards of the International Culture University and the International Institute of Gastronomy, Culture, Arts and Tourism, and has worked across the UN, Commonwealth and OAS regions working with multisectoral partners in civil society, government, private sector, academia and intergovernmental agencies to devise multidimensional approaches to addressing challenges of change sustainable development.
She has devised and conducted creative interactive courses, seminars and education programmes that encourage critical interrogation of development agendas to stimulate people-centred, gender and culture-sensitive paths to progress.
These include evaluations and assessments of north-south relations and particularly the small island developing states of the Caribbean in international policy arena, particularly in relation to gender, governance, culture and education at such forums as Commonwealth and OAS Summits; World Summit of Information Society; World Summit on Arts and Culture, Commonwealth Diversity Conferences, International Conferences on Cultural Policy Research, Brussels Briefings on Agriculture of the ACP-EU, among others.
Her successful pilot strategy for such round-table engagements to explore solutions towards food security was adopted as the model for the ACP-EU International Seminar on Media and Agriculture in Brussels.
Rampersad is the author of the three acclaimed seminal groundbreaking works: Finding a Place on the Indo-Trinidadian literary history of Trinidad and Tobago; Through the Political Glass Ceiling – Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female and LiTTscapes – Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago which features its literary heritage through more than 100 works by more than 60 writers since 1595.
Musical Heritage Walk to launch Pilot UNESCO Creative Cities Network inititive in Port of Spain
They say you are never too old to learn. This week, I learnt to clap..
Here’s the three-step method of clapping:
1.You clap as fast as you can and faster than
the person next to you;
2.You
clap with your whole body;
3.You say some pleasantries about which you
are clapping.
So let’s try that and applaud all those who have brought us to this
stage for the launch of this pilot musical heritage walk as part of the UNESCO
Creative Cities initiative for Port of Spain - because we are happiest people on earth, right?
Honourable Minister of Community
Development and Acting Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism, Winston Gypsy
Peters - one of our veteran calypsonian and certainly part of the musical
heritage of Trinidad and Tobago…. Friends in the culture
fraternity; other distinguished citizens, friends all.
Isn’t it remarkable that at a time that brings out the worst in us – as
election ‘silly season’ seems to do - , we can find the time and a space like
this at the iconic Casablanca Steelpan Yard here in Belmont, to celebrate the
best in us.
I can only begin to describe the pleasure and sense of
fulfilment in being able to open this first step of Trinidad and Tobago musical
walk towards engaging with the UNESCO creative cities network – and to do that
here, in Belmont one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most talented, most accomplished,
most diverse district - a microcosm of the people and cultural achievements of
Trinidad and Tobago.
The launch today of the Musical Belmont walk is just a small
first step towards an incredible journey of becoming a member of a UNESCO
global partnership that networks cities around the world, all representing and
all sharing a common goal for developing urban areas and harnessing their
cultural diversity for sustainable development.
This creative cities initiative is one of the flagship
projects of the Trinidad and Tobago Read More...https://krisrampersad.com/
When is literature #CulturallyInappropriate ...we have been inducted and nurtured on culturally irrelevant and culturally inappropriate literature and education through colonisation that still handicap our sense of self, values, development and progress...or do they? Does someone living inside an experience have more rights to writing about it than just a visitor? And where does that leave travel literature? Does historical truths have to be fictional truths? more #LettersToLizzie @krisramp @lolleaves
Preparing for the future: Need to get inside ICT-driven minds of preschoolers
parents/principals and leaders.
Leaves of Life is Creating Glocal digital education Content: for all ages to appreciate the world around us....
and to appreciate the people around us....
Click on images to see videos To request a product, licence or have us create one for you click here To Support our work click here Visit: www.krisrampersad.com
News You can use:: The world before us: The Challenge of Transformation
The vision for new world education.
Story Science. Prepping PreSchoolers for Policy Making. National Geographic Capstone. A new endeavour into linking arts and sciences and retraining generations for the new world.
The assassination of Dana Seetahal was already being written indelibly into the landscape of Trinidad and Tobago in the days preceding her ambush and assault and brutal killing in early May 2014.
The death gong was already poised to toll her death even before the rain of bullets echoed off her vehicle and through her body in the dead of night.
Days before her murder, the bugle call of her demise was being sounded from the mountaintops of one of our most primeval landforms. More....