PoS could recapture caribbean fashion hotspot | Archives

PoS could recapture caribbean fashion hotspot | Archives

Trinidad and Tobago has the potential to wow the fashion world as a new global player, using information and communication technologies (ICT) and new materials, as well as in becoming an international fashion centre with a “designers’ row” downtown of the country. This is one of the findings of studies done by Dr Michele Reis and Ian Ivey, of NEXT Corporation, in association with the National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (Niherst) and a range of local expertise in business, IT, the creative sector, research and others, and the T&T Foresight and Innovations Network.

Trinidad and Tobago has the potential to wow the fashion world as a new global player, using information and communication technologies (ICT) and new materials, as well as in becoming an international fashion centre with a “designers’ row” downtown of the country. This is one of the findings of studies done by Dr Michele Reis and Ian Ivey, of NEXT Corporation, in association with the National Institute of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (Niherst) and a range of local expertise in business, IT, the creative sector, research and others, and the T&T Foresight and Innovations Network.

“T&T already has a successful and innovative fashion and creative sector that provides a strong platform for ‘going global’ in a more proactive and ambitious way. “It is a sector that is in tune with a great deal of national passion,” said Dr Reis. Together with Ivey, she is helping industry stakeholders examine and invest in promising entrepreneurial initiatives in fashion.

 Fashion future is markets of one

She noted that at the turn of the 19th century, downtown Port-of-Spain was the major shopping district in the Caribbean that attracted shoppers from throughout the hemisphere to buy from top local dressmakers and tailors, and European and US-imported clothing. Reis said: “Port-of-Spain has the potential to recapture the distinction of being the Caribbean’s foremost fashion and shopping centre. The city has already undergone a considerable amount of redevelopment, particularly in the waterfront area, and more is planned for the central city and surrounding areas.”

She identified the area bordered by Frederick Street, on the west; Duncan Street, on the east; Park Street to the north and South Quay as suited to becoming an international fashion centre. This would complement areas in Port-of-Spain already earmarked for redevelopment, and work well the Government’s plans to create a pedestrian mall in the area bounded by Woodford Square, Knox, Hart and Pembroke Streets.

The Niherst study was based on the local need to evolve globally competitive businesses, “not only to compensate for the inevitable decline in the country’s oil and gas resources, but also to provide higher quality and more stimulating knowledge-based employment opportunities in the future for the increasing numbers of students graduating from universities, both at home and offshore.”
Utilising foresighting as a tool to assessing future consumer needs, it identified trends shaping the global fashion sector through the next decade as:
• customers’ desire for clothing that reflects multi-ethnic and multi-cultural influences,
• demand for “intelligent materials” sensitive to the wearer’s needs,
• and the changing ways in which the world conducts business, driven by options for virtual design and new business models that can produce for “markets of one,” as opposed to mass production.

These findings were based on extensive analysis and interactive workshops with designers, market experts, policy-makers, entrepreneurs and IT professionals as well as the local fashion sector. Even though there ill be a need to expand technological expertise and research and development as well as revise attitudes to networking among designers, fashion was identified as a growth area that could be readily implemented in T&T.

This, given the country’s already existing base of clothing products that can be customised for many markets, especially the range of diasporic “niches” and heritage markets of India, Africa and China, along with the close Latin American market and the Caribbean diasporas in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Dr Reis said, “Trinidad and Tobago already has a successful and innovative fashion and creative sector, which provides a strong platform for ‘going global’ in a more proactive and ambitious way.”
Revitalising Port-of-Spain as an international fashion centre was one of three “best bets” in the local fashion sector voted as potentially most lucrative.

Designers could cut it globally with ICT stitch

The others were a T&T virtual design and marketing facility that responds to individualised fashion needs for E-suiting; and a “one-stop creative design portal” that matches individual wearer’s requirements to local and global fashion houses as desired. Dr Reis said: “The ‘best bets’ are all cutting-edge opportunities facilitating customised ‘design and build’ collections for sale to end-consumers around the world with e-commerce and Internet support. “They leverage on the potential of new technologies like the Internet, facilitated by large popular portals such as YouTube and MySpace, which are rendering mega conglomerate business models redundant, to give small operators and small countries with highly specialised and unique offers, a ‘global niche.’”

Reis said if you took the local pool of highly creative T&T fashion design skills and combined it with innovative designers from other parts of the world, T&T could go truly global with a highly customised and unique offer. The new opportunities allow designers to accommodate different tastes of consumers, including cost, choice of fibres, styles, and other needs, so much already in demand in today’s world and surely will become more so in ensuing years. “These enterprises will earn revenue by commission on design fees charged to customers and royalties on any finished products manufactured commercially using such designs,” said Reis.

Basic road maps of the route-to-success, with preliminary projections of investments, have been developed for each of the proposed “best bets.” They also have identified the need for further development of intellectual property regulations for the sector and skills training, particularly in IT and new marketing. (See http://niherst.gov.tt/s-and-t/projects/foresighting/fashion). Key to all of this is a forward-thinking entrepreneur who can stitch together the existing elements, source those lacking, including seaming alliances and partnerships locally, regionally and internationally and step into a successful future in fashion.

Positive existing fashion factors

• Well-developed pool of design and fashion skills and specialists
• Suiting plants and factories, such as Tobiki, da Costa’s, Janoura’s and Front Row
• Supportive creativity and research capabilities, testing laboratories, some locally developed technology, marketing and branding expertise, and institutional support from UTT, Cariri and UWI
• Experience in experimenting with prototypes, use of the Internet and expanding Internet connectivity
• Available training through the Fashion Entrepreneurs of Trinidad and Tobago—a national training project that aims to back the development of manufactured products with a “Made in TnT” label—and the developing UTT Caribbean Academy of Fashion and Design, among others;
• Government business sector development agencies such as Nedco, E-Teck and the Business Development Company.

Dr Kris Rampersad is a
media and literary consultant

- See more at: http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/features/life/2009/04/12/pos-could-recapture-caribbean-fashion-hotspot#sthash.hMvTF0Cd.dpuf

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Trinidad and Tobago Media Code of Practice

The Code of Practice for Trinidad and Tobago Journalists that guides the Meida Complaints Council - How can it be updated ....

Trinidad and Tobago Code: Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association Code of Practice | RJI

Trinidad and Tobago Code: Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association Code of Practice

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(Adopted by the Trinidad & Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association)

The Media Complaints Council is charged with enforcing the following Code of Practice which was framed by the Trinidad & Tobago Publishers & Broadcasters Association and ratified by the Media Complaints Council.

All members of the media have a duty to maintain the highest professional standards. In doing so, they should have regard to the provisions of this Code of Practice and to the public's right to know.

Editors are responsible for the actions of journalists employed by their medium. They  should also satisfy themselves as far as possible that the material accepted from non-staff members was  obtained in accordance with this Code.

While recognising that this involves a substantial element of self-restraint by the journalist, it is designed to be acceptable in the context of the system of self-regulation. The Code applies in the spirit as well as in the letter.

It is the responsibility  of editors to co-operate as swiftly as possible in MCC enquiries. A reply in seven days should be the norm. All members of the Trinidad & Tobago Publishers & Broadcasters Association have undertaken to publish or broadcast in full, any  adjudication of the  MCC.

1. Accuracy

i) All media practitioners should take care not to publish or broadcast inaccurate, misleading or distorted material.

ii) Whenever it is recognised that a significant inaccuracy , misleading statement or distorted report has been published , it should be corrected promptly and with due prominence.

iii) An apology should be published  whenever appropriate.

iv) All media organisations should always report fairly and accurately the outcome of an action for defamation to which it has been a party.

2. Opportunity to reply

A fair opportunity for reply to inaccuracies should be given to individuals or organisations when reasonably called for.

3. Comment, conjecture and fact

The media. whilst free to be partisan, should distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

4. Privacy

Intrusions and enquiries into an individual's life without his or her consent, including the use of long-lens photography to take pictures of people on private property without their consent, are not generally acceptable and publication can only be justified when in the public interest.¬
Note - Private property is defined as (1) any private residence, together with its garden and outbuildings, but excluding any adjacent fields or parkland and the surrounding parts of the property within the unaided view of passers-by, (ii) hotel bedrooms  (but not other areas in a hotel and (iii) those parts  of a hospital or nursing home where patients are treated or accommodated.

5. Listening devices

Unless justified by public interest, journalists should not obtain  or publish material obtained  by using clandestine listening devices  or by intercepting private telephone conversations.¬

6. Hospitals

i) Journalists or photographers making enquiries at hospitals or similar institutions should identify themselves to a responsible executive and obtain permission before entering non-public areas.

(ii) The restrictions on intruding into privacy are particularly relevant to enquiries about individuals in hospitals and similar institutions.

7. Misrepresentation

i) Journalists should not generally obtain or seek to obtain information or pictures through misrepresentation or sub¬ter¬fuge.

ii) Unless in the public interest, documents or photographs  should be removed only with the express consent of the owner.

iii) Subterfuge can be justified only in the public interest and only when material cannot be obtained by any other means.

8. Harassment

i) Journalists should neither obtain nor seek to obtain information or pictures through intimidation or harassment.

ii) Unless their enquiries are in the public interest, journalists  should not photograph individuals on private property (as defined in the note to Clause 4) without their consent; should not persist in telephoning or questioning individuals. After having been asked to desist; should not remain on their  property after having been asked to leave and should not follow them.¬

iii) It is the responsibility of editors to ensure that these requi¬rements are carried out.

9. Payment for articles

Payment or offers of payment for stories, pictures or information should not be made directly or through agents to witnesses or potential witnesses in current criminal proceedings or to people engaged in crime or to their associates - which includes family, friends, neighbours and colleagues – except where the material concerned ought to be published in the public interest and the payment is necessary for this to be done.

10. Intrusion into grief or shock

In cases  involving personal grief or shock, enquiries should be  carried out, and approaches made, with sympathy and discre¬tion.

11. Innocent relatives and friends

Unless it is contrary to the public's right to know, the media  should generally avoid identifying relatives or friends of persons convicted or accused of crime.

12. Interviewing or photographing children

i)  Journalists should not normally interview or photograph children under the age of 16 on subjects involving the personal welfare of the child in the absence of or without the consent of a parent or other adult who is responsible for the children.

ii) Children should not be approached or photographed while at school without the permission of the school authorities.

13. Children in sex cases

1. The media should not, even where the law does not prohibit it, identify children under the age of 16 who are involved in cases concerning sexual offences, whether as victims or as witnesses or defendants.

2. In any media report of a case involving a sexual offence against a child.

i) The adult should be identified.

ii) The word "incest" should be avoided where a child victim might be identified.

iii) The offence should be described as "serious offences against young children" or similar appropriate wording.

iv) The child should not be identified.

v) Care should be taken that nothing in the report implies the relationship between the accused and the child.

14. Victims of crime

The media should not identify victims of sexual assault or publish or broadcast material likely to contribute to such identi¬fication unless, by law, they are free to do so.

15. Discrimination

i) The media should avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to a person's race, colour, religion, sex or sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or handicap.

ii) It should avoid publishing or broadcasting details of a person's race, colour, religion, sex or sexual orientation unless these are directly relevant to the story.

16. Financial Journalism

i) Even where the law does not prohibit it,  journalists should not use for their own profit financial information they receive in advance of its general publication, nor should they pass such information to others.

ii) They should not write or broadcast about shares or securities in whose performance they know that they or their close families have a significant financial interest without disclosing the interest to the editor or financial editor.

iii) They should not buy or sell, either directly or through nominees or agents, shares or securities about which they have written or broadcasted recently or about which they intend to write or broadcast in the near future.

17. Confidential sources

Journalists have a moral obligation to protect confidential sources of information..

18. The public interest

Clauses 4,5.7,8 and 9 create exceptions which may be covered by invoking the public interest. For the purpose of this Code that is most easily defined as:

i) Detecting or exposing crime or a serious misdemeanour,

ii) Protecting public health and safety.

iii) Preventing the public from being misled by some state¬ment or action of an individual or organisation.

In any cases raising issues beyond  these three definitions, the  Media Complaints Council will require a full explanation by the editor of the publication or broadcasting media involved, seeking to demonstrate how the public interest was served.

- See more at: http://www.rjionline.org/MAS-Codes-Trinidad-Tobago-Media-Complaints#sthash.VYBIBOox.dpuf

The global classroom letting the learner come to u

Look out for our new course offerings as we bring learning to your fingertips as is taking place elsewhere ...  more coming soon rampersad.com meanwhile see also http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/vint-cerf-goes-inside-the-online-revolution-in-education#IqCPv6xIRZqWHLBr.30

New US policy in the caribbean

Following the Munroe doctrine now this

A new US policy for the Americas

 

 

  By David Jessop

 

                                                         

 

 

Last week the United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, spelt out a new US policy for the Americas.

 

In a major address in Washington, he confirmed the approach that took hold during President Obama’s first term, formally drew a line under the cold war, and set aside, hopefully forever, the interventionist thinking that has underwritten US policy towards the hemisphere since 1823

 

His remarks also gave prominence to US-Cuba thinking, making clear that the new policy also applied to relations with Havana.

 

Speaking at an event co-sponsored by the Inter-American Dialogue and the Organization of American States on November 18, the Secretary of State declared that the era of the Monroe Doctrine was over and that the United States will no longer seek to intervene in the affairs of other American states.

 

The US was moving on, he said, and was making a different choice.

 

The Monroe Doctrine

 

For those who may not know, the Monroe Doctrine emerged from US President James Monroe’s annual message to Congress in 1823 which in part warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.

 

The approach which came to mean that only the US had the right to intervene was invoked symbolically in 1962 when the world stood on the edge of nuclear Armageddon after the Soviet Union began to build missile-launching sites in Cuba.

 

In a wholly different response, Mr Kerry said: “The relationship that we seek and that we have worked hard to foster is not about a United States declaration about how and when it will intervene in the affairs of other American states. 

 

It’s about all of our countries viewing one another as equals, sharing responsibilities, cooperating on security issues, and adhering not to doctrine, but to the decisions that we make as partners to advance the values and the interests that we share”.
 

US alternative

 

In his address, Mr Kerry spelt out in detail an alternative vision for the Americas.

 

Declaring that you don’t need force to have fuerza (strength), Mr Kerry suggested that the alternative in future will be

• to promote and protect democracy, security, and peace;
• advance prosperity and education in order to drive the hemisphere’s economies;
• and that it will be necessary to promote unity in ways that address critical issues such as climate change.

 

In a message that has as much relevance for the Caribbean as Latin America, and citing President Kennedy’s hope for the nations of Latin America ‘existing side-by-side, confident, strong, and independent and free, he spoke about the need for successful democracies depending on all citizens having a voice and of respecting those voices.

 

He spoke too about the need as a part of this to ensure security at home, combating organised crime, and protecting women from violence, prosecuting human rights violations and on upholding the rule of law.  

 

In his address Mr Kerry also placed emphasis on ensuring that:

• elections are free and fair; 
• independent institutions being able to hold the powerful to account;
• and the enforcement of laws that guarantee freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion.

 

He stressed the importance of economic interdependence, shared economic prosperity and the central role that education plays in providing this.

 

Co-operation with Cuba

 

Unfortunately space does not allow for more detail on what was a seminal speech that went to the heart of changing US policy towards the region and which will have future importance for the Caribbean as well as Latin America.

 

In this context, perhaps the most interesting part of the US Secretary of State’s speech were the five paragraphs on Cuba in which he confirmed that President Obama is engaged in seeking a relationship with Cuba in a ways, it appears, that will broaden functional co-operation.

 

In language without political pre-conditions and softer in tone than at any time since it became clear in the 1950s that Cuba’s revolution was socialist in nature, Mr Kerry said that the US looked forward to the day when Cuba would....embrace a broader political reform agenda.

 

While noting that Cuba was the exception to the democratic norm in Latin America as far as the US was concerned, Mr Kerry emphasised President Obama’s informal but widely reported remarks at a private fund raiser in South Florida on 8 November that the search was now on for a new updated Cuba policy.

 

Referring to these remarks at the home of Jorge Mas Santos, the Chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, Mr Kerry noted: “as (President Obama) said just last week, when it comes to our relationship with Cuba, we have to be creative, we have to be thoughtful, and we have to continue to update our policies”.

In what, in an historical context, marks a significant, even dramatic, change in high level US policy, the Secretary of State acknowledged  that the US and Cuban governments “are finding some cooperation on common interests at this point in time”. 

 

He also made clear that the US accepted that the reforms being undertaken were genuine.

 

“We also welcome some of the changes that are taking place in Cuba which allow more Cubans to be able to travel freely and work for themselves”, he said.

 

Hemispheric changes

 

His remarks were carefully balanced and calibrated.

 

“We look forward to the day – and we hope it will come soon – when the Cuban Government embraces a broader political reform agenda that will enable its people to freely determine their own future. 

 

The entire hemisphere - all of us - share an interest in ensuring that Cubans enjoy the rights protected by our Inter-American Democratic Charter, and we expect to stand united in this aspiration”. 

 

Mr Kerry also noted that each year, hundreds of thousands of Americans visit Havana, and hundreds of millions of dollars in trade and remittances flow from the United States to Cuba. 

 

“We are committed to this human interchange, and in the United States we believe that our people are actually our best ambassadors.  They are ambassadors of our ideals, of our values, of our beliefs”.  

 

In next week’s column the implications for the Caribbean Basin of Washington’s changed thinking and the US Vice President’s interest in the Caribbean will be addressed.

  .... http://www.caribbeanintelligence.com/content/new-us-policy-americas.  . For more visit https://krisrampersad.com/

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Leadership and fiction

I have studied, thought and wrote about fiction for years from this perspective and understanding that fiction deepens our understanding of life and of human personality and character and a means to inform disciplines of sociology, psychology, politics and in fact a great entry point to appreciation of any society - all of which is certainly important to cultivating good leaders and leadership. I will recommend a mix of writers to first of all get a sense of various societiesm Though there physicsl charscters might have changed other intrinsic characters and traits are more difficult to evolve...from Africa - Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart deals with conflict between leader and clan in community.... visit Caribbean Literary Salon... to be continued ....more