Coral King

Caribbean Her­itage month was cel­e­brat­ed in June. This comes one year af­ter US pres­i­dent, Barack Oba­ma, pro­claimed June 2010 as Na­tion­al Caribbean-Amer­i­can Her­itage Month. The one-month cel­e­bra­tion pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty for all Amer­i­cans, in par­tic­u­lar, Caribbean-Amer­i­cans, to cel­e­brate the his­to­ry and cul­ture of Caribbean-Amer­i­cans with ap­pro­pri­ate cer­e­monies and ac­tiv­i­ties.

This year the Caribbean Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion (CTO) em­barked on a num­ber of ac­tiv­i­ties to cel­e­brate the oc­ca­sion. These ac­tiv­i­ties took place from June 5 to 11, and in­clud­ed the Caribbean Trav­el and Cul­tur­al Fair, The Di­as­po­ra Fo­rum, In­vest Caribbean Pow­er Break­fast, The Rhythms of the Caribbean Ball, and an in­au­gur­al fash­ion show. It was ev­i­dent that the CTO was con­scious of the im­por­tance of tourism to the eco­nom­ic liveli­hood of Caribbean states, and the need to at­tract in­creased vis­i­tor ar­rivals at a time when the economies of the Caribbean are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing tremen­dous dif­fi­cul­ties due to the pro­tract­ed world eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial crises.

That ex­plained the rea­son for the theme cho­sen for this year's ac­tiv­i­ties-Re­dis­cov­er Home. The aim is to lure US-based na­tion­als of Caribbean her­itage back to the shores of the is­lands to par­tic­i­pate in the re­gion's eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment. In an ef­fort to achieve their ob­jec­tive, the CTO has de­vel­oped a plan of ac­tion for a year-long build-up, that will in­clude the even­tu­al cre­ation of a Caribbean dis­count card on ho­tel stays, car rentals, air­line trav­el, tours, and shop­ping, among oth­er things for Di­as­po­ra na­tion­als trav­el­ling back to the re­gion.

There will al­so be a Caribbean Di­as­po­ra awards cer­e­mo­ny, which is ex­pect­ed to be on par with the Em­mys and Os­car awards. The aim is to push Caribbean celebri­ties to al­so re­dis­cov­er the Caribbean as their home. The cel­e­bra­tions al­so wit­nessed the launch of a Web site tar­get­ed specif­i­cal­ly to the Di­as­po­ra, ti­tled One Caribbean Di­as­po­ra. The pro­vi­sion of schol­ar­ships to de­serv­ing Caribbean na­tion­als who in­tend to pur­sue ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion stud­ies is al­so an im­por­tant out­reach ac­tiv­i­ty of the CTO.Con­se­quent­ly, the fash­ion show raised funds for the CTO Foun­da­tion, whose pri­ma­ry pur­pose is to pro­vide schol­ar­ships to Caribbean na­tion­als.

This pre­mier fash­ion event show­cased out­fits that could be used on var­i­ous oc­ca­sions, rang­ing from up­scale func­tions to beach wear, and fea­tured cre­ations by award win­ning Queen Es­ter-Ku­um­ba De­signs (St Lu­cia), Michael Jerome Fran­cis (Ja­maica), Theodore Sealy Elyett (Ba­hamas), Jew­el Shan­non (Bar­ba­dos), Re­bec­ca Beck (Cu­ra­cao), Lu­cia Ro­driguez (Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic), Charles Dieu­juste (Haiti), Kazz Forbes (Turks & Caicos), Black Tea Ap­par­el (Haiti), and The Piper Twins (Montser­rat).

The Rhythms of the Caribbean Ball and awards pre­sen­ta­tion, was a "bare­foot" black tie af­fair, where flip flops com­ple­ment­ed for­mal at­tire for those who dared to be dif­fer­ent, and was the clos­ing event to an ex­hil­a­rat­ing Caribbean week. Guests at New York's fa­mous Plaza Ho­tel sam­pled the re­gion's unique va­ri­eties of rum, while en­joy­ing steamed cre­ole fly­ing fish from Bar­ba­dos, and a suc­cu­lent pep­per­pot of beef short ribs with cas­sa­va oil down from T&T.

The evening al­so wit­nessed the pre­sen­ta­tion of awards to Sir Roys­ton Oliv­er Hop­kin, KCMG, and Clif­ford Gar­diner for their long and out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty and tourism and avi­a­tion in­dus­tries, re­spec­tive­ly. Guests danced to sounds of the vi­sion band, and were al­so en­ter­tained by Dan­za Fi­es­ta Group, The Na­traj Cen­ter for The Per­form­ing Arts, and Know Your Cul­ture. A silent auc­tion was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­duct­ed, and a por­tion of the pro­ceeds went to fi­nance schol­ar­ships to Caribbean na­tion­als pur­su­ing ca­reers in tourism.