Beyond the Beads is more than a chronicle of Trinidad and Tobago’s Junior Mas traditions — it is a platform for reclaiming, rethinking, and reimagining the role of children’s mas in our national development narrative. Born out of academic research and lived cultural experience, this blog explores how Junior Mas functions as a vibrant site of informal education, creative industry, cultural transmission, and community resilience. It critically engages with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — particularly SDGs 4, 8, 11, and 16 — to position Junior Mas as a legitimate contributor to education reform, economic empowerment, urban inclusion, and institutional strengthening.

But Beyond the Beads is also deeply personal. It is a love letter to the wire bender in her yard, the child learning history through her costume, the mas maker keeping a band alive with odds and ends and that carnival spirit. It is an effort to bridge the gap between policy and passion, between cultural labour and academic recognition.

Each post invites readers — researchers, cultural practitioners, policymakers, educators, and Carnival lovers alike — to consider what it truly means to protect, promote, and invest in our youngest masqueraders. This blog stands as both an archive and an advocacy space, urging us to take children’s mas seriously — not just as spectacle, but as a tool for sustainable development, nation-building, and generational change.