CYPAN Trinidad organises video shoot for peace
December 13By Terez Lord, CYPAN Country Coordinator for Trinidad and Tobago
The Trinidad and Tobago arm of Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassadors Network (CYPAN) has been planning, coordinating and executing a plethora of initiatives in keeping with its mandate to upscale and optimise grass-root, national, regional and Pan-Commonwealth efforts at promoting peace. The most recent activity was a video shoot project, which starred local celebrities in Trinidad and Tobago.
Our country has a tremendously cosmopolitan racial demographic, comprising of a myriad of races who generally coexist as one. The idea was to have the faces and voices of locals who have proven themselves as positive influences of youth in the local arena to appropriately represent CYPAN. They came from an array of fields – actors, artistes, poets, comedians, Olympic athletes and sports persons, television and radio personalities – who willingly donated their time for this incredibly important cause.
Attired in white, the colour of peace, all celebrities were asked to deliver their answer to the question “What does peace mean to you in the context of Trinidad and Tobago?” It was essentially a message of peace to Trinidad and Tobago and the Commonwealth.
Because CYPAN is a new organisation, and this marks its advent in Trinidad and Tobago, one of our biggest priorities is to familiarise and sensitise the public about our work and mandate. I thought that one of the best ways to do so was to utilise the platform given to people who are already famous.
To send this message of peace, we needed a messenger to whom the intended recipients would listen. Celebrities have the capacity to captivate attention. Once this is done, we are already closer to becoming a more peaceful country because the subconscious and conscious awareness of the need for peace is already planted in our minds.
Thus this video serves as a reminder for us to revisit values of forgiveness, love, courtesy, patience and reciprocity: do onto others as you would have them do onto you. If we become more conscious of the need for these, then we are close to attaining sustainable peace.
The video will be available shortly – follow the CYPAN Facebook for updates.