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This Emancipation we are pleased to introduce Roots & Rites, a season of performances, learning and community engagement that explores freedom as both inheritance and responsibility.

From July through August, we will be hosting a series of gatherings through theatre, music, storytelling, heritage education and rites of passage to honour those who came before us while investing in those who will carry the future.

Our roots ground us in memory, survival and collective responsibility.

Our rites prepare us to lead with purpose, dignity and community.

Together we can celebrate Emancipation as not just a holiday but as a living practice of community collective responsibility, a place to preserve heritage and invest in our future leaders.

Signature Community Impact
Rites of Passage For Boys Entering Secondary School

This is a life skills based mentorship programme preparing students of East Port of Spain who are making the transition to secondary school.
What Your Support will help us do:

Secure a safe and neutral venue for sessions
Provide essential school items for students in need
Provide daily refreshments for participants during the two week programme.

Signature Cultural Impact
Sound of the Drum : The Lavways, Chant and Kaisos of Kambule

In April 2026 we began recording Songs of Kambule at the iconic Blackman Ranch. The result is a landmark album project capturing the traditional drums, lavways, chants, and songs that form the foundation of the play Kambule and the deeper roots of Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival.

What Your Support Will Help Us Do
- Pay the musicians, singers, and cultural practitioners who carry this knowledge
- Create artwork and storytelling materials that honour the history behind the music
- Share Trinidad and Tobago’s cultural heritage with audiences locally and internationally
- Protect Trinidad and Tobago's traditional knowledge and intellectual property

Liseli Fitzpatrick donated $675
Z Edwards donated $1,013
Nailah Robinson donated $338
Jamali Williams donated $506

My big brother Dr Hakim has always been there for me he is my brother keepers 🇹🇹💯💪🏾🫂
Anonymous donated $506

Dr. Hakim Williams is a truly gifted educator and a son if the soil who always remembers his roots and returns often to enrich and empower the lives of the people in his East Port of Spain community and the wider Trinidad and Tobago.
Anonymous donated $169
Lyndon K Gill donated $675

Congratulations on this African ancestor-led community work! Dr. Hakim Williams is a wonderful choice of role model and guide. So glad he shared this with me.
Michael Thompson donated $338

Best wishes on these important initiatives. Particularly glad that Dr. Hakim Williams is joining this effort and supporting the young men make the big transition to secondary school
Anonymous donated $338

Best wishes!
Piper O’Keefe donated $338

A key feature of our Rites of Passage Programme for Boys will be a one week intensive training in Restorative Circles and Conflict Resolution with Dr. Hakim Williams, the inaugural Daria L. & Eric J. Wallach Professor & Director of Peace and Justice Studies, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Affiliate of Education, and Advisory Committee Member for International & Global Studies, and Public Policy at Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania, USA.
Dr. Williams is an internationally respected lecturer and organiser born and raised in Laventille and will be in Trinidad with the support of Gettysburg College.
He is currently writing a book that documents his restorative circle work in communities in Ghana, Jamaica, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago.