All Stars, Mango Rose hope pan could help bring peace

ONE steel orchestra is taking a musical stance against crime in its community and hopes its music among other initiatives would bring a positive change to residents.

Massy Trinidad All Stars, the Mango Rose community and PALOS Crew hosted a vigil on July 23 following the murders of two of its members on July 12, and said it hoped the event could be the start of healing for the community.

The reigning Panorama champion also called on other bands to do the same within communities deeply affected by crime and criminality. The groups hosted the vigil following the July 12 murders of Jean-Marc Fonrose and Kerwin MCleod.

Fonrose was a tenor player in All Stars' Youth Steel Orchestra, playing with the band for three-four years and McLeod was one of the its many fans.

People and residents were invited to attend and wear white and walk with a candle. It was held between 6-8 pm. It began at the band’s Duke Street headquarters and a procession to Mango Rose followed.

Under the cover of a soft evening, the band tuned its pans and played a Sparrow medley among others hoping to inspire the residents to come together and find peace again.

Trinidad All Stars’ community manager, ace pannist and PALOS Crew member Dane Gulston along with its PRO Staci-Ann Patrick spoke to Newsday about it.

Patrick said PALOS Crew started the discussion about what could be done. The crew is a group of friends who were living in Mango Rose, grew up as adults and moved out but who kept a close connection to the community, Gulston is one of its members.

“I don’t know how many people will end up being here but I think it is a start for us to be able to start taking personal responsibility. We can no longer say that it is the red’s fault, or the yellow fault or the blue fault.

“We are personally responsible,” she said.

Patrick said music was a healer and good music should be a balm to people’s problems.

Panyards were safe spaces where generations of people came together, she added. She gave the example of Funrose’s grandfather also playing Trinidad All Stars.

Recently, the Ministry of National Security recently launched its Call to Order initiative aimed at youth between ten and 24, and invites them to record videos singing their own lyrics using the instrumental for The Call, a song by Marvin King feat Isasha, Ziggy Ranking, King David and Prophet Benjamin.

Asked if the band believed music could help Trinidad and Tobago’s crime problem, Patrick said she personally believed that no initiative should be marketed as a way to solve crime.

Younger people should be invited to panyards to learn to say, “Please, Thank You, Good Morning. Basic Manners,” she said.

“Let them come in the panyard so they learn a skill, so they can elevate themselves above where they are at now. Not let them come in the panyard because we don’t want them to be a criminal. That is the wrong message we are sending.”

Gulston said the panyard taught young people to be a model citizens and discipline, as it required them to stand long hours behind an instrument.

However, both Gulston and Patrick said youth were receptive to positive messages, if given the chance.

Patrick said Fonrose would have turned 21 this December and if people had gone to his funeral on July 22, people would have noticed the depth of emotion of his friends.

Patrick said there was not enough counselling and career guidance for TT’s youth.

Gulston credited strong parenting for his upbringing and the upbringing of the other PALOS Crew members. He said he was not seeing a lot of strong parenting now and a lot of fathers were not putting their feet down in the handling the home.

“Parents, I don’t think are really taking a hold of their young kids,” he said.

He said respect for people and environment was also lost and younger people were angry.

Both Gulston and Patrick said not enough was being done to encourage younger people to become involved in pan.

Patrick said many of TT’s steel orchestras were located in underserved areas and a different perspective of how pan could serve these communities was needed.

“From the inception of pan it was always marketed as a handout. Now we market it as a place where criminals can survive, where you cannot become a criminal. So it is always a negative.

“We have never said that pan is the next oil drum, the real oil drum. We never referred to it as that and because we have never referred to it as that we don’t get the level of investment that is required to put pan into the world,” she said.

Gulston referred to the Trincity land formally earmarked for Pan Trinbago’s headquarters, saying that the Government felt it was better to have a cricket academy there than a pan academy.

“If you invest and show – especially the youths today – how valuable this thing is, they will have the total respect as well as the rest of the public,” he said.

He added that the band was also willing to partner with other bands in the crime fight.