Baje to the World developing talent

Hinds said that unlike other talent competitions, Baje to the World’s goal was not simply to find a winner of the show at the end of the season, but to fully develop the various talents on display throughout the entire selection process.

“Baje to the World this time around had the mandate from the Community Development Department of making it very different from what it was in Season 1. We are so accustomed to these talent shows that are just that; people come and they showcase their talent, and then we hardly hear about them, we don’t know what has happened after the talent show has finished,” she said.

“There has been a real heavy focus on building out emerging talent, and that is the sum total for what we have been doing for Baje to the World.”

Hinds also said that with Season 2 started in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, many changes were made for contestants, as technology and increased levels of planning had to be implemented.

“It certainly made us more responsive as a group, and I think it made the contestants and the people who worked along with us far more careful about their interactions, what they did, how they did it, when they did it, we even considered at one point that we would possibly have to put everybody in a bubble leading into the finals because of how things were going,” she said.

One of this year’s contestants, Christina Dottin, said the experience so far has been an excellent one, in which all participants have benefitted from training and preparation workshops.

“Everything that we have learned, we needed. A lot of the things that we were taught in our workshops were things that I always used to say, how do I get this done, and Baje to the World made sure that I got everything, right down to sound engineering and especially mental health.” (SB)