‘Art goes beyond entertainment’
In the eyes of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, Ruth Blackman, the arts is more than just a source of entertainment.
Her comment came during the launch of Youth Talk at CARIFESTA, which was held at the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) Headquarters yesterday evening, while stating that she viewed the arts as a form of therapy and development for youth.
“It is an avenue through which people can show onstage or on paper exactly what is happening and how solutions can be found by the interpretations that they bring to the stage or canvas and that is what I think Youth Talk is all about,” she said.
Blackman also believes that from a social development perspective, the arts is of value to youth as it allows them to be creative, innovative and fill a void. From the perspective of someone that worked in a field of coming up with policies, the work of the youth tend to inspire what policies they could enact next or suggest.
She went on to say that when they first got together and decided that Barbados was going to put in a bid to host CARIFESTA, it was clear that two things needed to be present; cultural industries and youth.
“We wanted these two elements to play a significant role in whatever we were going to portray and in looking at those two elements we thought that a theme that best echoed that was the theme for CARIFESTA 13 which is ‘Asserting our Culture, Celebrating Ourselves’, and that was the theme that we wove everything else around,” she said.
Blackman also expressed her gratitude to the IDB for their continued investment in the development of the island, in particular the youth. She mentioned that the IDB were the ones that came forward to support the ISEE Bridge Programme in order to help develop the social protection aspect of the island.
Javier Urra, Chief Operations Officer of IDB Barbados expressed that they are aware that Barbados is going through some complicated times and noted that they are very glad to be able to lend some assistance towards the growth of the island. Riots brought to life.