Asserting our future, celebrating ourselves is the theme for the thirteenth Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA XIII), which takes place in Barbados on August 17-27, 2017.
At this year’s CARIFESTA XIII hosted in Barbados, the Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export) will be facilitating the participation of designers and artisans from across CARIFORUM within their Design Caribbean and Caribbean Essence export promotion platforms.
CARIFESTA XIII will not lack for exposure thanks to the signing of two agreements – The Host Broadcasters Agreement with the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC); and a Memorandum of Understanding with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU).
CARIFESTA’s Youth Talk is expected to take the regional festival “to another dimension of the arts” in Barbados.
This is according to Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, Ruth Blackman, who identified the youth and the cultural industries as the two significant elements to be focused on at the festival.
She made these remarks on Thursday at the media launch of Youth Talk at CARIFESTA Youth Village, at the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) office in Maxwell, Christ Church.
CARIFESTA XIII promises to be to be a diverse festival with a lasting legacy.
During a media update in his Sky Mall office on Monday, Minister with responsibility for Culture, Stephen Lashley highlighted several plans for the Festival. One notable feature referred to by the Minister was the Grand Market and Buyer’s Mall.
Local and regional entrepreneurs will have a rare opportunity to showcase their products to international buyers as well as shoppers from the Caribbean when the new CARIFESTA Grand Market and Buyer’s Shopping Mall opens at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre (LESC) on August 17.
MESSAGE OF CONDOLENCE
FROM THE SECRETARY-GENERAL, CARIBBEAN COMMUNITY (CARICOM) AMBASSADOR IRWIN LAROCQUE ON THE PASSING OF
SIR DEREK ALTON WALCOTT, KCSL, OBE, OCC
On behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), I wish to express profound sympathy on the passing of internationally acclaimed Caribbean poet and playwright, Saint Lucian born, Nobel Laureate, Sir Derek Walcott, OCC.
It is a pleasure to warmly welcome all of you to the Twenty-Second Meeting of the Regional Cultural Committee (the RCC), a body that has been in existence for over 25 years, having first met on 6-7 June 1987 in Trinidad and Tobago.
A very special welcome to the representatives of Member States who are attending the RCC for the first time. It is a pleasure to welcome you into the CARICOM family of Directors of Culture and we expect that you will very quickly adapt and contribute to the collegial and productive atmosphere in which we are accustomed to working.
St Lucia will move to enact a Creative Industries Bill for the country during the upcoming parliamentary session, according to St Lucia Governor General Dame Pearlette Louisy.
The bill would follow the lead set by Barbados, which led the region in enacting its landmark Cultural Industries Development Bill.
“This is an important vehicle for generating employment for young persons as well as providing for a positive social environment,” Louisy said in her throne speech, without giving specifics on the nature of the bill.