Here at TriniGourmet I always try to maintain a balance between indulgence and healthy living. It is this type of balance that I think is the key to a harmonious life and overall wellness. Although my focus here is food, this blog and my everyday reality doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Unfortunately a balanced approach to living is all too often not being passed on to the younger generations in our society. The pull of instant gratification when not tempered with education and awareness is a dangerous thing and we are bearing witness to it now as a society, not only with an escalating crime rate but also an unnecessarily high rate of teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

It was an effort to raise awareness on these matters that Tempo (MTV Caribbean) launched the Choices initiative in June. I am a huge fan of Tempo and wanted to promote the initiative from the onset but the videos they had created were not embeddable at the time. Fortunately, and to my immense surprise, I was contacted by them several weeks later and invited to take part in promoting this venture to the general blogosphere. Of course I said yes!

Although the sidebar menu only links to the earliest episodes the series is actually now at Episode 6. Click on “Full Episodes” to view more

Part of TEMPO’s One Love pro-social initiative, Choices, – Roots, Reality, Culture is a ground breaking interactive scripted series of shorts. The scripted project takes viewers into the world of a group of young people who meet at Trinidad Carnival and become fast friends during a pure Caribbean adventure. As their stories unfold, characters traverse issues surrounding sexual health, pregnancy, impaired decision-making due to alcohol consumption, HIV/AIDS testing, trust, and peer pressure. At the conclusion of each episode the audience will have the opportunity to vote to decide on the choices faced by an individual character. Choices – Roots, Reality, Culture will be complimented by a weekly online blog and articles written by an advisory panel of youth health experts, artists, educators, and HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention experts.