GREETINGS from Negril.com!!!

Dear Reader,

Thanks for dropping by! Negril.com is dedicated to exposing the Heart, Arts and Culture of Jamaica. Negril.com strives to cover all our varied art expressions through reviews, commentaries, interviews, and tips you can use.

To read exciting contributions by our writers, you can either read the blogs below this welcome note or click on any of the links (above the welcome note) to individual pages. You can also search through our monthly archives listed on the right of this page.

If you would love to have your cultural event or project featured, please contact us at either our Negril office (957-3191) or Kingston representative (797-7297). You may also send an email to anthea@negril.com. Keep connected!! One World, One Love!

JUST A THOUGHT:
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a
tree without roots.” — Marcus Mosiah Garvey

A graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Anthea is CEO of OAaSIS International, a company set up to expose and sensitise on the culture and the arts, starting with children. She has over 12 years experience in Journalism and the Fine Arts. Contact her also at islandartattack@yahoo.co.uk or anthea@theoaasis.com. [or Facebook]. WEBSITE: www.antheamcgibbon.com

Bookophilia heads encourage

Jamaicans to fight with the pen

Anthea McGibbon, Content Editor

IN AN ONLINE campaign begun by one-year-old Bookophilia, Jamaicans are being mobilised to bring about change in Jamaica through the gift of writing. This signifies that Jamaica has come a long way since its independence, with the citizens now assuming a new role of holding government officials accountable. This especially when it comes to the literacy and advancement of the island’s natives.

Led by the representatives of Bookophilia bookstore and club, Kingston, Jamaicans are being challenged to take a stand against, and, to insist on a repeal of taxes which will affect all Jamaicans.

This is in direct response to an imposed the new literacy tax by the Government. Accordingly under the category of “Books, Newspapers and Education” - previously tax-exempt, books and reading material as of Monday, April 27 are being taxed.

“Books, Newspapers and Education” [are defined as]:
10. Printed matter, articles and materials such as –
(a) brochures, pamphlets and leaflets for religious purposes and books other than schoolbooks and booklets
(b) newspapers journals and periodicals, whether or not illustrated
(c) children’s picture books and painting books;
(d) maps and hydrographic charts and similar charts of all kinds, including atlases, wall maps and topographical plans, printed globes (terrestrial or celestial).”

The revision issued on Monday is that religious materials and educational materials (as defined by the Commissioner of Inland Revenue) will be tax-exempt.

In 2003, similar attempt to impose a similar tax failed after swift action from citizens who protested and lobbied in unison.

Bookophilia heads negotiate the imposition as unfair, in a country where the literacy rate is already woefully low. In a recent release they also argue “We have to make our leadership understand that the list of MOE textbooks is too narrow a definition of “educational”. Every children’s book is educational - and reading of any book should be encouraged.

They also propose that the move will also present a practical difficulty in how this would be implemented. For example definitions on religious and educational books seemingly remain unclear.

Questions proposed are Is Mother Teresas biography a religious book? What about books by the Dalai Lama? Is a book on Caribbean politics educational? What about a great work of literature like say a copy of War and Peace? How long will it take to clear goods on the wharf as Customs officers try to decipher which of the 1000 different titles in a shipment should attract tax? 

Already the team has demonstrated the advantage of being literate, at least computer literate.

In a posted note on Facebook, contact information for both the Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Member of Parliament (info@cabinet.gov.jm; info@mof.gov.jm; FitzAlbert_2@yahoo.com)

Supporters are then asked to copy, edit and pesonalise the letter below into a personal e-mail to the above addresses. 

>>>>>>>>> sample letter >>>>>>>>>>>>

Dear Prime Minister Golding and Minister Shaw:

As a concerned citizen, I am writing this letter to urge you and your colleagues to act swiftly to repeal the tax on books. Protecting our ability to access books and affordable reading material is critical to our nation’s development.

I urge you to stand with us on this issue and keep all books affordable for the people of Jamaica. I am particularly concerned about the following:

1. That only the MOE list of approved textbooks or religious texts are exempted - This narrow definition, limited to MOE approved textbooks and books deemed religious by the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, is unacceptable. We believe that all books, especially children’s books, are of educational value.

2. That reading, books and education are not luxury items to be taxed for quick returns and short-term revenue gains. We demand that our government take a long-term view of this issue and its impact on the future of our nation.

3. That with the impact of recent devaluation, the price of books has already increased and this tax will put many books beyond the reach of the average citizen.

We have the right to develop into a literate and educated society. Citizens must have access to diverse and affordable reading material. Reading of any and all types of material, must be strongly encouraged by our government.

I strongly urge you to act now to repeal this tax and allow all books and reading material to remain tax-exempt.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent request.

Sincerely,

………………………
(your name)

Up to publication time, the number of participants or letters submitted remains unknown.

 

A graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Anthea is CEO of OAaSIS International, a company set up to expose and sensitise on the culture and the arts, starting with children. She has over 12 years experience in Journalism and the Fine Arts. Contact her also at islandartattack@yahoo.co.uk or anthea@theoaasis.com. [or Facebook].

Negril’s online mediahouse

 exposing the Arts of Jamaica!!!

Anthea McGibbon, Content Editor

FOR OVER 10 years, Negril.com remains dedicated to exposing the Heart, Arts and Culture of Jamaica. Negril.com recognises that visitors to the island especially are attracted to the island because of the island’s unique culture and multiskilled people. Negril.com strives to unfold Jamaica’s varied art expressions through reviews, commentaries, interviews, and tips readers can use, especially while in Jamaica.

This especially as there are those persons who shy away from reading the local news, sometimes filled with reports on crime within Jamaica. Currently, there are hotels that do not allow immediate access to local newspapers for this reason, and hence preventing them from grasping a full understanding of the island and its offering otherwise.

The online mediahouse, however, in no way competes, but rather compliments exisiting media houses. It operates as an an extension of the coverage of Arts and Culture of local media houses. It is staffed by a qualified editorial team, long experienced with the varied arts and expressions and are themselves seasoned and proliferic journalists in this regard.

 

Anthea McGibbon, an experienced art critic and artist herself functions as the Content Editor. She still on occasion contributes to the the Gleaner’s Art Section.

Some of these persons contribute on a voluntary basis, joining the quest to see Jamaica take its rightful place at the pinnacle of the world. The vision of the team is to use arts and culture to transform the outlook of and from Jamaica. 

Partnering with companies such as Negril Education Environment Trust, performing and visual artists, as well as the popular spots around the island, it is hoped that even the most insatiable hunger for interaction with Jamaica and its people will be filled.

Contributions by our writers can be still be accessed, despite the layout of the site is currently being upgraded for better interaction and exposure, which at times result in photographs not being shown. 

To access contributions, readers must first log on to www.negril.com and choose/click on Arts and Culture from the list to the left of the home page.

Thereafter readers can click on any of the links (above the welcome note) to individual pages. Articles and their links are also published immediately following the welcome note. Readers can also search through the monthly archives listed on the right of this pages in the Arts and Culture section.

Readers can join the message boards or simply send a comment where requested.

So far, there are numerous websites are reusing downloaded information and articles from the site. Interestingly the only one not accrediting the source is located in Portmore, Jamaica, and doing so without expressed permission.

To reuse any item from the site please contact the management or content editor in writing and additionally give proper accredition on the source. 

For coverage or feature of any cultural event or project including books in Negril.com’s Art and Culture section, contact can be made at any of the following:

The Negril office (957-3191), Coral Plaza or
Kingston representative (797-7297)
Mail can be sent to 3 South Avenue, Building #2, Swallowfield, Kingston
You may also send an email to the Content Editor Anthea McGibbon, at anthea@negril.com or islandartattack@yahoo.co.uk.

Keep connected!! One World, One Love!

JUST A THOUGHT:
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” - Marcus Mosiah Garvey

A graduate of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Anthea is CEO of OAaSIS International, a company set up to expose and sensitise on the culture and the arts, starting with children. She has over 12 years experience in Journalism and the Fine Arts. Contact her also at islandartattack@yahoo.co.uk or anthea@theoaasis.com. [or Facebook].

Shaggy Parrot the Reggae Bird gets the United States seal of approval

 

The National Parenting Center (TNPC.com) - The worlds largest parenting advocacy group, that reviews tests and evaluates children’s products from manufacturers worldwide, (including Disney and Baby Einstein), has awarded the CD Storybook, “Shaggy Parrot and the Reggae Band” featuring the voice of Shaggy, the 2009 Seal of Approval.
 
The book will carry the silver TNPC Seal of Approval sticker that draws attention of buyers. Today The National Parenting Center started a US wide promotion campaign of the list of awardees to over 5,000 media houses, tv stations, parenting magazines, as well as to buyers for major US retail and online stores, and 50,000 parents across America. their site is visited by 400,000 parents looking for recommendations of items to buy for their children.
 

CHECK THESE LINKS

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090111/arts/arts6.html

http://negril.com/blog/?page_id=292

 

Jamaican author Doreen East launches latest work

 

P Gavin James, Negril.com Writer

 

DOREEN EAST, A self-styled ‘natural writer’, on April 4 launched her book Hit Me With a Good Man, recently in the cool of St Andrew.

 The project, which took just over a year to write and compile, was as the writer explained, a project to capture the experience of a Jamaican woman. This Jamaican woman returns to her homeland and finds love. This time however, the story was told through a Jamaican’s eyes with a purely Jamaican perspective.

At the book’s launch, East, the author her apparent love for writing, which as a result, a voracious appetite for reading had developed, so much so that at age 8, she found herself reading Shakespeare.

  The need for writing her book, as she explained it, arose from a need which she  felt was not being satisfied by the overseas literary community. “ I felt almost duty-bound to step outside of the figurative and literary stereotype of  the Jamaican experience of being only ‘rum, reggae and ganja’. I felt that Jamaica was shortchanging itself with non-Jamaicans writing from the perspective of citizens without really living an authentic Jamaican experience,” East said. “You have to be Jamaican to feel Jamaica”

  According to East, the text is not autobiographical. She left Jamaica to live overseas for ten years, but despite all leaving, impressed upon those who were on hand, that there was a constant yearning to reconnect with Jamaica. The text chronicles the adjustments that a returnee has to make, and the initial level of culture shock of coming back to a somewhat different Jamaica from which she had left. In summing up her work, and to bring it closer home to the males on hand for the launch, she paralleled Jamaica and the female returnee. She emphasised “Like a woman- in the sense that when you leave her, it is like you find yourself wanting to come back to her ”.

      While the launch was not an exclusive family event, close family friend Sister Mariamne Samad, was on hand to relate the similarities of her experience and those shared by the central character, (being that she was among the few with a pre release copy).

She related experiences from her 58 year marriage, and the adjustments that she had to make as a result of marrying at age 17. She described the work as being “delicious”, due to the depth of the scope the writer successfully covered in addition to the vivid imagery which was used to bring across feelings and thoughts towards the reader. In closing Samad summarised “this book is so exciting, that I couldn’t find myself putting it down, it had awakened things within me which I thought died a long time ago” to the delight of persons in the audience.

  Other persons on hand, who previewed the book before release described it as being ‘evenly balanced’ and that it had ‘presented that lessons life had to teach, and that there were no learning manuals’.

Separate and apart from exploring the ever arising issue of erotic love and its forms, the text also tackle dead relationships. It also explores the complex issues as to why human nature sometimes propels or deters us from following through on what is right for us, and not based on external factors. The author also felt the need to write about HIV/AIDS, but did so in a satirical manner to dull the grave issue.

 In closing,  East outlined that the text was more about general, but personal experience and not just what she had experienced in her personal life. Indicating that the text was the quilt work of the many life experiences of Jamaican women, she felt her portrayal was quite justified.

At the signing, i became evident how close the project was to her heart, and based on the initial responses from those who have read the work, there is much promise.

 

 

P Gavin James is a mass communication graduate of CARIMAC.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties uploading photographs. As soon as relating issues are resolved, photographs will be uploaded. Please understand. Thanks in advance and for your continued support.

For more on our art and culture, see also the Gleaner’s art section.

Portmore’s “Family Fun Fest” set for Easter

 

ONCE AGAIN the Negril Education Environment Trust (NEET) is on board giving families a great opportunity to read and learn, and have fun together. On Easter Monday, April 13, Jamworld, Portmore will again be the venue for “Family Fun Fest”.

NEET, the charity arm of Travellers Beach Resorts will donate over 4000 books to the day’s success.

Last year Pal Production, in collaboration with Jamaica Fun Fun, hosted the first staging of the event at Jamworld for residents of Portmore. According to CEO of both companies, and the event’s organizer, David Benton, the first staging was a challenge, but well attended enough to make it an annual family event.

Jamaica Fun Fun will offer:

l      Water Slides

l      Rock Climber

l      Go-Kart

l      Bounce-a-Bout (3 types)

l      Clowns and Face-painting

 

To complete this year’s package, top artistes, working with Palz Production, have committed to delivering igniting performances. The 2008 winners of Dancing Dynamites, Granny, comedians Apache Chief and Sarge and Jamaica’s Michael Jackson are slated to perform. Also in the lineup are singers George Nooks, Etana, and Elephant Man. The recently-launched Dance Expressions School will be represented.

Over a million dollars worth of prizes including household items, televisions, x-boxes, videos, and, over 4,000 books, will be given away. Added attractions will be a treasure hunt.

Major Sponsors include:

Kingston Hireage, UDC, Seprod, D&S Auto Parts, Traveller’s Beach Resort, Negril.

 

Caribbean Books Shine at International Children’s Book Fair

 

– BOLOGNA, Italy: 

 When the 4-day Bologna Children’s Book Fair opened yesterday, Monday, March 23^rd, the welcome for Caribbean books went as warm as the island rays. 

A team of electricians, belted the Bob Marley’s  ‘Trench Town Rock’, and glimpsing the hint of the Jamaican flag, shouted “Giamaica is here,” “Prego, Giamaica!” between verses.

In its debut appearance at the Bologna Fair – the largest children’s book fair in the world – a collection of Caribbean children’s books is winning fast fans and high praise.

 

Coordinated by the Caribbean Publisher’s Network (CAPNET), the collection boasts more than 80 children’s books from around the region and by authors and illustrators from the Caribbean Diaspora.  Among the titles are 20 new works from the Jamaican Ministry of Education’s Literary 123 collection. Included are Cricket Is My Game and Max and Me by Barbadian author Jason Cole; Shaggy Parrot and the Reggae Band, a book and CD project by Grammy® award winning artiste, Shaggy; and many titles from across the region from MacMillan Caribbean.

Publishers Represented at Bologna 2009 include:

Arawak Publishing

Brightwater Press

Carlong Publishers

Ian Randle Publishers

Jackmandora

LMH Publishing

Macmillan Caribbean

Ministry of Education, Jamaica

Reggae Pickney

Southwark Council

 

“We’ve been really well received here,” says CAPNET’s Kellie Magnus, who coordinated the collection for the fair and whose Little Lion series is also part of the exhibit.  “We’ve had a lot of interest from European librarians and teachers who are interested in work that promotes multiculturalism and diversity.”  Among them, Renee van Oosterom, a librarian from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who remarked that the growing number of black and biracial children in her city, many of whom are of Caribbean descent, had difficulty finding books that reflected their identities. Victoria Hill, a librarian from the Brooklyn Public Library in New York, U.S.A, expressed surprise at the size of the collection and interest in acquiring titles and arranging author visits for the borough’s large Caribbean population.

 

This response, says Magnus, points to the need for Caribbean authors and publishers to showcase their work outside the region.  She took the collection to Bologna on the heels of a similar exhibit in Washington, DC, which introduced the books to the Caribbean Diaspora there.  “There are great children’s books coming out of the Caribbean now,” she says, “but we need to do a better job of promoting them to each other and to the international market.” 

 

The Bologna Book Fair ends Thursday, March 26.  Magnus hopes to replicate and expand the exhibit with shows across the region, and in cities in the U.S. and U.K. with large Caribbean populations.  Plans are already underway for a Family Book Fair in Jamaica in May, to be coordinated by the Authors and Publishers Sub-Cluster of Jamaica Trade and Invest.

CIDA DONATES SHAGGY CURRICULUM BOOK TO BASIC SCHOOLS

“It’s great to get the awards, but there is no greater reward than seeing the smiles on the children’s faces!” was Grammy Winning Artiste Shaggy’s response when he received praises today, March 11, 2009 at the Dudley Grant Memorial Trust. Shaggy was witnessing the presentation ceremony of almost 700 copies of his children’s CD and Storybook, “Shaggy Parrot and the Reggae Band” featuring the voice of Shaggy, to corporate area early childhood institutions (ECI’s).

 

Children and Principals from the Escarpment Road Basic School, the Mona Commons Basic School, the Providence Methodist Basic School and the Hermitage Basic School happily received copies of the books from donors, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) represented by Counselor and Head of Development for CIDA, Mrs. Lorraine Belisle.

With the addition of the book to the Early Childhood Curriculum Resource List for Jamaica, a CIDA Programme - the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI) -facilitated the donation of the books and the Dudley Grant Memorial Trust. The books will be distributed to the ECI’s.

Mrs. Lorraine Belisle expressed her pleasure in approving the CA$10,000.00 purchase, stating that the Canadian Government has played a long and important role in ensuring the provision of quality education and care to children worldwide. “It is our hope that the success of this unique educational product will pave the way for other edu-tainment materials that enable kids to play while learning. “Shaggy Parrot and the Reggae Band” exemplifies the best use of Jamaican talent and skills for the learning process.”

Mrs. Ceceile Minott, Project Director of the Trust said, “This is an exciting moment for us, as we have come a long way since this project was started two years ago. We thank you Shaggy and hope you continue to do more to get good children’s learning material like this one into the school system.” 

Mrs. Dorna Wright, a senior education officer in the Early Childhood Unit offered her deep gratitude to the star, stating, “It is an exceptionally special occasion for us at the Early Childhood Unit, when multidisciplinary forces, such as the production team on this project come in to help us deliver quality education to the children of Jamaica.”

Shaggy thanked the directors of Reggae Pickney Ltd., siblings, Jana and Rupert Bent III, for their hard work and perseverance in producing the book with accompanying narration and music CD. “Between my recent activities and this book, I feel a new sense of purpose with my work and life. Part proceeds of this book will also go to the Bustamante Hospital for Children.”