Ministers miss schools parang festival

TWO government Ministers failed to turn up for the opening of the “Anda Parandero,” the theme for the 2005 National Schools Parang Festival. The absence of Joan Yuille-Williams, minister of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs and her Junior Minister, Edward Hart, was one of three setbacks to the opening. Yuille Williams was down to give the feature address and Hart who is the parliamentary representative for Tunapuna where the event took place, was also down to address the young paranderos and their parents. The El Dorado Secondary School where the festival is taking place suffered a power outage, causing the show to start two hours late.

Lingering rain also caused the late arrival of participants from some schools. But these factors did not dampen the spirits of the young paranderos who were drawn from junior level schools throughout the country. The president of the National Parang Association, Michael Lezama,  appealed to the young paranderos to keep the parang tradition alive. He also appealed to radio stations in the country to play more parang and local music, if only for the sake of Trinidad and Tobago, and to keep doing so until the World Cup finals where this country is one of the 32 finalists. Twenty schools participated in yesterday’s junior parang festival. Another 20 will be in today’s part of the festival which is catering for primary schools.