Pinelands Creative Workshop has launched a fundraising drive to build a permanent cultural facility by 2028 – its 50th anniversary – positioning the project as a permanent home for cultural training, research and knowledge sharing.
Chief executive officer Sophia Greaves said on Tuesday she hopes the facility can be completed in time for PCW’s golden anniversary celebrations.
“I can imagine cutting that ribbon.”
Greaves made the announcement as the organisation launched a bartending and mixology course at the Centre for Hybrid Studies, Spirit Bond, on Wharf Road in The City.
“Sometimes there’s a challenge to find quality spaces to deliver training. So, sometimes we are working with what we are faced with,” she said.
While the centre was selected because it already includes a bar and suitable facilities for practical training, the experience has reinforced the need for a dedicated space capable of housing multiple programmes under one roof, she said.
“We have that cultural facility that we really would like to build out in terms of making sure there’s a home, there’s a regional home that could really, where you can find research, where you can engage in training that looks at all the cultural products under one roof and really speaks to further building of that retention, that knowledge sharing and building.”
The proposed facility would support not only bartending and mixology training but also programmes in dance, wire bending and other cultural disciplines, while serving as a repository for Caribbean cultural knowledge, said the CEO.
“That space could be that foundation, that institution where you can find all of that in one space,” she said. “Culture, meaning not only in terms of people, but in terms of the work, in terms of the knowledge, in terms of the learning.”
According to Greaves, the vision extends beyond Barbados and reflects the organisation’s growing regional role through Cultural Fusion, a grassroots network that connects cultural practitioners throughout the Caribbean.
“We do exchanges with Trinidad that we just did with the drumming. The fusion comes to life with the Caribbean Yard Campus in terms of sharing their resource person, teaching us wire bending. That is what the Cultural Fusion is all about.”
A dedicated facility would allow those partnerships to develop further while creating a permanent institution capable of supporting research, accredited training and regional collaboration, she added.
“If we can find that overarching space where fusion fits in, where the research fits in, where the [Caribbean Vocational Qualification] fits in as that Caribbean institution, that’s where we’re heading.”
The announcement comes as PCW approaches five decades of work in community development, arts education and cultural preservation. Greaves said PCW has consistently contributed to social development in Barbados and now requires a permanent base to strengthen and sustain its programmes.
“Pinelands have provided nearly five decades of commitment to development and not only to dance and the arts, in terms of community, in terms of people development, in terms of the whole social stabilisation and re-engineering.”
PCW is actively seeking support from donor agencies and the private sector to bring the project to life, said Greaves.
“We are still looking on our own in terms of which donor agency, private sector, wherever, that we can start to build out and look at where we can translate either building a space or translating an existing space into that workable institution.”
She also revealed that PCW is moving towards UNESCO accreditation, a development she believes strengthens the case for a dedicated cultural facility.
“We have done our work. We just need to have that space so that we can have our programming far more consistent and far more organised that it allows for greater sustainability of the organisation over the medium- to long-term.”
(LE)
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