The Sandy Bay Heritage Development Foundation (SBHDF) formally opened the Caribbean Ties Exhibition and Documentation Centre to the public on March 17.
The centre, which is located near the Sandy Bay Post Office and the Sandy Bay Health Centre aims to provide information about the community’s past and present history.
Vice President of the SBHDF Patricia Fraser said that the documentation centre is part of the Sandy Bay Eco Tourism Cultural Project, a two-fold project that aims to restore and preserve the heritage of the people.
Fraser said the project also involves the upgrading of an indigenous trail — The Corner Rock Trail — and the revival of the quadrille dance.
She told the crowd that the heritage foundation is working on a documentary involving senior citizens.
“We want to gather the knowledge and the history of the past from the elders in the communities and have them documented and kept at the centre,” Fraser said.
During the ceremony, the Fancy Government School sang the National Anthem of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in Garifuna, a language that is lost to Garifuna in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but alive in Central America and the United States.
The Fancy, Owia and Sandy Bay government schools rendered cultural performances while Jadon and Josh Woods and Former National Calypso Monarch Maxwell “Tajoe” Francis recited poems
President of the Garifuna International Indigenous Film Festival, Freda Sideroff spoke at the event, and an audio message from former Carib Chief of Dominica, Irvince Auguiste was also played.
Joan Hoyte, who is from Sandy Bay but lives overseas, presented the SBHD with a donation of US$1,000.
Clementina Lavia, 97, said to be the oldest resident of Sandy Bay, cut the ribbon to officially open the centre, where artefacts and exhibits are displayed.
The project is sponsored by the Global Environmental Facility programme with local support from the Forestry Department and the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Red Cross.
This is all very well but your unique forests are being destroyed and the unique Vincentian parrot will become extinct unless you act and act NOW! I speak as a long standing and frequent visitor to the island I have come to love