The Arts Development Manifesto -Reclaiming the Cultural Soul

Published on November 7, 2025

I would imagine that the two political parties contesting the general election have been giving some thought to their manifesto commitments to the cultural and creative community.

As creatives we must be proactive, initiate and sustain conversations on the areas that need urgent attention and not wait for the parties’ cultural and creative sector advisors, consultants or operatives to offer their vision of the much-neglected sector.

We have been very good at putting on events and making misdirected investments in ‘infrastructure’ projects while we continue to underfund and undermine meaningful and more impactful ‘training and development programmes’.

Lots of funding is being sourced and spent on projects that sometimes give poor to zero return on investments.

My wish is for creatives from the various sub-sectors of the cultural and creative fraternity to propose their own manifesto ideas that best address the development needs of their constituents.

For me, a manifesto needs to address and invest in three key areas –policy development and implementation, research and documentation, training and development with a deliberate and dedicated focus on the much neglected cultural and organic aspect of what defines our cultural identity. This is what makes us UNIQUE as Saint Lucians. Deprivation was a colonial construct. It’s lingering effect is still evident.

In brief, these are the broad areas my manifesto would address.

• Policy development and implementation
• Research and documentation
• Training and development
• Institution building and accountability
• Infrastructure.

Quick Question – Who is willing to deliver a state-of-the-art Roderick and Derek Walcott Arts and Performance Centre within the next five years? It’s 46 years overdue.

Research and documentation would include a re-energised Folk Research Centre that focuses on RESEARCH.

A well funded National Archives has a key role to play in research and documentation. Apparently, we have not learnt the lessons from Mount Pleasant.

Training and development is key!

Training and development should begin with pre-schools and MUST involve commitments from a Ministry of Education that understands and commits to its critical role in shaping a nation’s cultural identity. It cannot be left to one or two committed but frustrated teachers in isolated pockets of the system.

The Kwéyòl Language should be taught in a structured way from the pre-school level. Every school bag should have some version of a Kwéyòl dictionary.

Jason ‘Bachelor’ Joseph has a social media model that can be scaled and morphed into a Sesame Street concept for early learners. If one man can do it, how come institutions are struggling with the concept of incorporating technology and no AI into the mix. Joyce Auguste and Paba blazed the trail decades ago with their culture education programmes on a now disappeared Radio Saint Lucia. Its re-emergence is a fleeting illusion...

Every pre-school should have a folk band. A minimum investment calls for – a shak shak or two, drums, and a piece of bamboo. Let the children play, dance and sing to the folk rhythms that their great-grand parents handed down from generation to generation. Let Niger and Charlie produce those drums, banjos, shak shak etc.

Every pre-school should have commissioned paintings of our cultural heroes – Dame Sessenne Descartes, Ramo Poleon, Theresa Hall, Roderick Walcott, McDonald Dixon, Antoninus Thomas, Clara Edwards, Eliza Maxwell, Florita Marquis, Frank Norville, Mighty Pelay, Petronilla Deterville etc.

Every school should have a well-structured and integrated arts programme to cover music, theatre, arts and craft with strong emphasis on WRITING, a low hanging fruit.

Let our seasoned and experienced songwriters tutor and mentor the next generation of writers. Same applies to the arrangers and musicians.

Business of the arts should be taught together with business subjects at the school level. A business student should be able to produce a business plan for a fellow student interested in a career in the arts. Or even someone in sports! Proposal writing should be introduced at the school level as well.

Events planning and management training should also start at the school level. Let the students conceptualise, plan and execute own their own events, under adult supervision of course.

We need a Cultural Development Centre that focuses the bulk of its attention and resources on DEVELOPMENT and not get consumed and overwhelmed by EVENTS. This can be exhausting for the organisation and is counter productive. The CDF should be decentralised to have offices in culturally rich [and promising] communities on the south, east and west coasts of the island.

An “EVENTS” office should be involved in setting standards and providing infrastructure for community and national events. Training should also be provided to events planners in communities around the island.

Institutions such as the Cultural Development Foundation, the Folk Research Centre, the National Archives, the Archaeological and Historical Society and the School of Music need to be properly structured and well resourced.

Nurturing a nation’s cultural identity should not be an inconvenient allocation.

There must be a whole of government, whole of nation approach to the development of the cultural and creative sector.

Note I have not mentioned festivals/carnival, visitor arrivals, livelihoods and economic development. If we get people and product development right, then the rest will be history.

And talking about history.....