By Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Monday 31st October 2022) – “Creatives are workers too!” That was the topic addressed by guest speaker at the 83rd annual conference of the St. Kitts-Nevis Trades and Labour Union delivered by 22-year-old Roberitine Webbe, the Director of the Creative Economy in the Ministry of Culture who encouraged ending the stigma about creatives so as to improve equality, diversity and the inclusion of the orange economy across the country.
Webbe, who is a professional dancer in the field of the creative arts, expressed while speaking at the live broadcast event held on Sunday 30th October 2022 at the SWMC (Solid Waste Management Corporation) Conference Room at Taylor’s Range in Basseterre, that the inclusion of the creative arts should be taken most seriously. According to her: “Creative arts should be entwined in all sectors, the arts must be where diversity and inclusion should be taken most seriously.
Improving equality, diversity and the inclusion of the orange economy across the country is key to releasing the true potential of our nation’s artistic and cultural talent, and it starts with ending the stigma and moving with us providing the necessary resources and programmes.” As pointed out by the Creative Economy Director, “Creative arts are a form of expression not bound by language.” She explained: “They involve skill, imagination, and inspiration. How can we degrade, demoralize and hobbitize something that is so much a part of us.
The creative arts can be found in many forms such as literature, painting, drama, music, dance, robotics among many others. The things that are a part of our way of life. This is our formula to diversify and grow our economy, but this can only happen if our creatives are involved.” She highlighted that creatives are workers “because we are risk takers… because we have the dare to fail attitude…we are willing to be different…we can sometimes be impulsive, fickle and change our minds quite often.” Webbe went on to share: “For us to continue our global impact, the art that we produce as a people should not just be outstanding in form and content, but relevant to the widest possible audiences.
We do this in the hope that the ideas within will help anyone with the power to appoint and promote to support more outstanding people who live for the arts. All of us in this very room are responsible for what is happening in our country.
Creative art is happening. If we sit back and do nothing, we shall lose our creatives and we shall lose ourselves.” “Often we hear, creativity is intelligence having fun (and often too that we hear this being associated with the famous Albert Einstein).Under common perception, we see creative people as gifted children that have been blessed with such talent towards solving grand challenges in life.
Which is similar to creatives at work. We dubbed them as game changers and at times, envied by others. The thing is, even if you have no creativity, when you begin to work, you realize that this is something that can be taught, learnt and developed,” she highlighted.
“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all and this country runs on that. Without creativity in our course of action, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns,” Webbe expressed. – LOCAL NEWS – 3
