Businesses Support Art Festival

NCFA 2008 corporate 'Theatre' level sponsors as well as representatives from Coutts, Rotary Grand Cayman, Hedge Funds Care and CNCF gather at the Harquail Theatre with Angela Martins (third from left), Chief Officer of the Ministry of Education, Training, Employment, Youth, Sports and Culture. Missing from photograph: Representative from Caledonian Bank & Trust.

The annual National Children's Festival (NCFA) received strong support from the business sector this week. The event is one of the islands' most popular and long-standing youth-oriented cultural celebrations.

In time-honoured tradition, many local businesses and organizations have decided to be a part of NCFA by pledging donations and support to help Cayman's young artistic talent showcase their skills and creativity in a range of cultural activities, competitions and exhibitions.

Education Minister Hon Alden McLaughlin said: "Donations from our partners in the corporate sector help significantly offset the costs to government of staging the NCFA and allow us to considerably enhance standards of production and the overall quality of the experience for participating children and audiences alike."

He added, "We are enormously grateful for this additional support and we hope that the public events will be chock-full of enthusiastic supporters of the wealth of talent and potential, which is rife among Cayman's school children."

The NCFA, which is now in its 26th year, is organised by the Cayman Islands Department of Education Services in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Training, Employment, Youth, Sports and Culture.

Angela Martins, Chief Officer of the Education Ministry, said, "The NCFA provides an almost unparalleled platform for our young people to show what they can really do. The festival is unique in the sense that it brings together students from all government and private schools in a very public setting, and in a fashion which not only showcases the excellent work going on in our schools and the calibre of our students and teachers, but is also highly rewarding for the huge numbers of people who come out to enjoy the spectacle."

NCFA is one of the most eagerly anticipated events in Cayman's cultural calendar, and comprises performances, competitions and exhibitions, in which hundreds of young people from schools all over the Cayman Islands showcase their artistic talent before the eyes of the general public.

The festival culminates in a series of public performances of speech, drama, dance, bands, soloists, choral and song-writing. The goals of the NCFA are to promote the involvement of Cayman's youth in the artistic pursuits, as well as make a lasting contribution to the nation's cultural development.

Corporate supporters of this year's NCFA were offered the opportunity to sponsor the event at various levels, each of a different value and light-heartedly dubbed with an artistic reference such as, Paintbrush, Cello, Poem and Theatre. Sponsors at the highest level this year, the so-called, 'Theatre' level, are CIBC Private Wealth Management, Caledonian Bank & Trust, Dart, Royal Bank of Canada, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Water Authority Cayman.

Water Authority Director Dr Gelia Frederick-van Genderen expressed her enthusiasm for the event.

"The Water Authority congratulates the NCFA on their effort to increase the cultural energy of our children in music, drama, arts, crafts, dance, song and creative writing. We recognize the importance of cultural energy for our youth and wish them every success in achieving their goals," she said.

The festivals' traditional supporters remain faithful again for 2008. The Rotary Club of Grand Cayman is awarding a prize-cup for the Literary Competition to the writer of the best short story with a Caymanian theme.

Coutts will be helping fund the traditional annual book-publication, "The Coutts Collection", a compelling read whose pages are filled with winning entries from the Literary Competition. The Cayman National Cultural Foundation will be awarding two prizes in the Speech category, one for the best story-telling performance overall and the other for the best telling of a Caymanian story.

NCFA 2008 will be made all the more special by the introduction to the traditional festival format of the new 'Young Musician of the Year' competition, which promises to be a major feature of the NCFA going forward. In this, the inaugural occasion of this new component, Butterfield Bank is the named-sponsor and the competition will form the grand finale of the entire arts festival. The winner will be presented with a trophy and $500 towards a new instrument.

Hedge Funds Care Cayman will also be coming on board with a new feature, making awards to students with winning entries across all of the NCFA's categories of dance, speech, drama, music, arts and craft and literary. This new addition to the festival format has been aptly named "Brighter Futures", and cites its main aim as 'highlighting and bringing attention to the theme: Caring for our children to ensure a brighter future.'

NCFA Performance Shows will be running throughout the first two weeks in June and are open to the public.

NB: This article was reproduced with the kind consent of Cayman Net News.