TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO WINS FIRST ROUND IN CARICOM DEBATE

Trinidad and Tobago defeated Grenada as the preliminary round of the CARICOM 25^th Anniversary Regional Schools Debating Competition got underway in Georgetown, Guyana on Tuesday, February 2, 1999.

The three-member all-female Trinidad and Tobago team of Kersha Edwards, Bhagwandaye Basdeo and Keisha Jack successfully argued that "Gender Equality in the Caribbean Community Is A Myth". Ms Edwards was adjudged Best Speaker at the debate which was held before a standing room only crowd of mainly school children at the St Roses High School Auditorium.

The Grenadians, Yuri St Bernard, Imo De Couteau and Malikah Mitchell put up a stout, primarily legal-based defense in a high-calibre competition which brought forth superlatives from the judges panel which was led by Mr Alim Hosein, Head of the Department of English at the University of Guyana and included Mr Donald Sinclair, Co-ordinator Caribbean and Tourism Studies Programme at the University of Guyana and Ms Marilyne Trotz, Programme Manager Conference Services at the CARICOM Secretariat who was a former lecturer in the Modern Languages Department at the University of Guyana. The Moderator was Ms Rosamund Addo of the National Bank of Industry and Commerce (NBIC), one of the corporate sponsors of the event along with Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO); LIAT (1974) Ltd; Air Caribbean and Surinam Airways.

The winners next meet Guyana in the quarter-finals which are scheduled for Guyana on February 10, 1999. On that date St Kitts/Nevis and Montserrat will also compete against each other in another quarter final. The four teams are vying for the two remaining places in the semi-finals for which The Bahamas and Dominica have already qualified.

The competition is one of the last major events marking the 25^th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas which established the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). The finals for the competition will be held during the Tenth Intersessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community which will be held in Suriname in the first week of March, 1999.