Parliamentary Representative for Gros Islet, Hon. Emma Hippolyte, has announced the launching of the Frank Norville Centre for Creative Arts which is to be located in Gros Islet. At a press conference last Thursday, Ms Hippolyte, the initiator of the idea for the Centre, stated that the launching will take place on Sunday 25th October 2015 – Jounen Kweyol – at Monchy from 3:00pm.
The idea behind the Centre is to provide an avenue through which unemployed and unattached youth in the district of Gros Islet can learn skills in the creative arts to empower then to improve on their situations. For the time being the Centre will operate as a virtual entity with activities taking place in four locations: Monchy at the Human Resource Centre, the Gros Islet Secondary and Primary Schools, the Corinth Secondary School, and the Grande Riviere Primary School. Classes will commence with students from those schools but will be expanded to take in the unemployed youth in the district.
The Centre is named in memory of the late Frank Norville who passed away in May this year and who was an enthusiastic singer and promoter of St. Lucian folk music.
It is his connection with folk music that made Jounen Kweyol an appropriate date for the formal opening of the Centre while Monchy was chosen as the venue for the launch because Norville had worked extensively with the Monchy School.
The Centre has already received a gift of musical instruments from Professor Harvey Millar, a Canadian-based St. Lucian university lecturer in Business who is well-known here as a jazz musician. Dr. Millar, who contributed to refining the concept and modalities of the Centre, was also present at Thursday’s press conference.
The programme for tomorrow’s launching of the Centre includes performances by the school orchestras from Monchy, the Gros Islet and Corinth Secondary Schools, and the Gros Islet, Grande Riviere and Dame Pearlette Louisy Primary Schools.
There will also be addresses from Ms Hippolyte and a representative of Frank Norville’s family which has warmly embraced the idea of the Centre of Creative Arts in his name.
The programme commences at 3:00pm but will be preceded by Jounen Kweyol activities in Monchy from early morning and will climax with a performance from Monchy’s popular solo group, Secret Band.
