Belize @ 42 Awards; Meet the 7 Awardees in the Creative Industry
To start the month of September, the Ministry of Public Service and the Belize City Council teamed up for a flag raising ceremony at the flag monument roundabout this morning. The activity saw the attendance of high school students, the scouts and a steel pan performance. This preceded the Belize at Forty-two Awards Ceremony held at the House of Culture in Belize City this afternoon. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
For the past two years, the National Celebrations Commission has been honouring the legacy of seven great Belizeans who have contributed to the creative industry and the country. This year, seven individuals were recognized for outstanding contributions in music, arts, visual arts and culture. They were nominated by the public and then a selection committee made the final pick.
Francis Fonseca
Francis Fonseca, Chair, National Celebrations Commission
“We are very, very happy again this year that we are able to honour and recognise and acknowledge seven outstanding Belizean creatives in the areas of dance and music and writing and indigenous culture. As I said in my brief remarks, for too long we have not paid proper respect to the creative community, to our cultural community. We have not acknowledged them; we have not recognised them and so this is one of the proudest things that we do every year for the past two years – the Belize at forty-two awards – paying tribute to them and at the same time honouring the history of those who came before; the trailblazers, the cultural creative trailblazers.”
The awardees were as follows: the George Gabb Award for Visual Arts went to Carl Gordon. Gregory Vernon was given the Rosita Baltazar Award for Dance, while the Beverley Smith Lopez Award for Acting in Theatre and Film went to Beverly Swasey. Attorney Godfrey Smith received the Zee Edgell Award for Literary Arts. Aurora Saqui was honoured with the Don Elijio Panti Award for Protection and Development of Traditional Knowledge. Egbert “Mime” Martinez got the Leela Vernon Award for Creative Community Action and Safeguarding Cultural Heritage and Adrian “the Doc” Martinez received the Andy Palacio Award for Original Belizean Music.
Adrian “The Doc” Martinez
Adrian “The Doc” Martinez, Recipient, Andy Palacio Award for Original Belizean Music
“It is an honour; one that I was not looking out for, but I guess it came in time when I was in the stage of thinking whether I should continue what I am doing. So, this in itself is a courage and so it came just in time to really get that thinking off of me now to decide that hey the work has to continue because I was contemplating whether I should continue dealing with music or not. So it is just the right time. I continue to do music – not necessarily doing a lot of performance, but to teach. I have my music institution and I teach young musicians. So that’s what I have been doing in Dangriga.”
Minister of Culture Francis Fonseca says that it aligns with the country’s goal of developing the orange economy.
Francis Fonseca
“This is what the orange economy is. It’s about the creative cultural economy and how can we generate value, economic value out of this creative cultural work. Again, it is an area that we have not paid sufficient attention to and it’s a tremendous potential across the globe. The orange economy is accounting increasingly for more and more of nation’s GDP so we have to do our part in Belize, NICH has to do its part, the Ministry of Culture has to do its part to make sure that we are engaging and involving our creative community and putting in place a structure and legislation and policies and programs that allow them to get value out of their work.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
