Sunday, August 6 2006

The seventh annual Laventille Steelband Festival Parade sweeps the streets of Laventille today with big names in the ranks.

The parade, which is expected to feature bands such as Exodus, Starlift and Woodbrook Playboyz, will begin at 4 pm, moving from Mc Callister Street, Laventille, to the Eastern Main Road, then to Leon Street and will culminate at the Fernandes Complex.

The event was launched in 1999 by the board of the Laventille Community Complex as a means of promoting unity and positive development within the Laventille community.

Sponsors of the event include the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs; Petrotrin, WITCO, National Flour Mills, Pantrinbago, several regional corpo-rations and Trinidad and Tobago Instruments Limited.

Laventille Steelband Festival Foundation Chairman Michael Cooper explained: “This is one of the aspects of our community life that we can hold high. With the negative stigma, we are going against the grain. Over the last six years we have been able to hold the event in the heart of Laventille without one single incident having occurred. This is one of the safest events in Trinidad.”

President George Maxwell Richards and Minister of Community Development, Culture and Gender Affairs, Joan Yuille-Williams, are expected to be in attendance.