Rayal Grant dances his way to Howard University

The feeling of accomplishing an academic goal overwhelms even the best of us. The emotions ran even higher on February 10 at EastSide Vybz cooler fete, a backyard party hosted by the D’Abadie O’Meara Women’s League (DOWL).

The event was easily one of the best parties held in Arima for the Carnival season and saw a packed poolside at D Ivy in Malabar. The main reason for the success of the event was its purpose: it was held to raise funds for Rayal Grant.

When Newsday highlighted Grant's academic achievement last July, the former Trinity East College student had won a partial scholarship to Howard University, USA, and was making all attempts at securing finances to attend. Forfeiting a year to raise the tuition, he would now be blessed with proceeds from the party.

During the performance of soca artiste Farmer Nappy, Grant was invited on stage and given some advice. Nappy said, "When you go to school it have things that would bother you. Throw that aside. Let it bounce off. You are on a mission. Don't let nobody spoil your joy."

Also commenting on the DOWL's contribution was D'Abadie/O'Meara MP Lisa Morris-Julian who said, "I am delighted to share with the success of our recent backyard party and fundraiser for Rayal Grant. It was truly heartwarming to see our community come together to support Rayal and his dream to attend Howard University. The DOWL is intent on helping Rayal achieve his goals."

College Boy Jesse, RKG, Oscar B and Nico Dimus also gave live entertainment while Kevin Baker, Beats by Robin, Christian, Mc Zee, and DJ Dax were the DJs for the night.

InDiGlo party

One Arima International, promoters of the New York-based InDiGlo party, held the first edition of the event in Trinidad on February 3.

InDiGlo was a wear white, inclusive event held at the River Ranch, Blanchissesue Road, Arima venue.

Promoter Nigel "Jayt" Maloney said he decided to invest in TT by staging the event here. He said his goal is to work with other promoters to have several events in Arima so residents can party in the borough.

"We are a group of Arimians that live abroad and started to work together around 2011 – my cousin in Houston, one in London and others. This is the first year in Trinidad and one of the main reasons was it started to get very expensive to host in NYC. So, I decided to invest in Trinidad instead. And besides, I'm here many times during the year anyway. Come home, party for a weekend and leave. Being from River Road, Arima, the purpose now was to help in building back Arima to its party days."

He said the party's success was beyond expectations.

"The stage you saw in the pool and the decor were something I saw at an event in foreign and decided to put something similar at my event. The event was bigger than I expected as we got 200 more than what we catered for. The goal is for all the party promoters in Arima to lock down the entire week with parties so that people in the east don't have to go to Port of Spain or anywhere else. So we are also encouraging Boys RC (primary school, the promoters of D Roll Call,) to bring back their event.

" I was happy with what I saw for J'Ouvert (in Arima) but the Carnival needs work. We are working on something for Borough Day and want the borough (council and corporation) to work with us as we need to plan way in advance."

The event started at 8 pm, ended at 3 am and saw live entertainment from Lyrikal, Viking Ding Dong, GBM Nutron, Waddicks and Terron.