Raymond, the spray man, edutainment and more

The youth aspect of the Carifesta X celebrations got underway on Saturday with a symposium on edutainment held at the International Convention Centre at Liliendaal. The symposium, which is the first of its kind ever held regionally, featured delegates from seven countries: Barbados, The Bahamas, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia, Suriname and Trinidad &Tobago.

The focus of the conference was to examine edutainment – education through entertainment – as it relates specifically to the Caribbean region, and to draft a position paper which will be presented at an International Edutainment Conference which will be held next year.

One of the highlights of the symposium was presentations by personnel involved in the edutainment industry who expounded on how edutainment could be used to address social issues in the Caribbean.

Guyanese Anand Harilall, who once served as the Reinforcement Manager of the local radio series Merundoi, spoke on the topic ‘Defining edutainment.’ He described it as the use of entertainment to package messages that would influence behaviour change.

However, he continued, effective edutainment needed to focus on real issues that were of concern to the audience. He identified several edutainment programmes which had been used with success over the years, such as the show Raymond, the spray man, which had been instrumental in reducing the spread of malaria in Jamaica.

Surinamese Yldiz Beighle who is the co-chair of the Caricom Commission on Youth Development (CCYD) highlighted some of the current social issues affecting young people in the Caribbean. She revealed the preliminary results of a survey conducted by the CCYD last year. She identified crime and violence, HIV/AIDS, lack of job opportunities, negative peer pressure and negative media influence as some of the issues highlighted in the survey.

Eusebia Baptiste, the director of YATICA one of the leading St Lucian groups involved in edutainment, also spoke. She continued to address the social issues affecting youths in the Caribbean emphasising how edutainment could enable young people to deal with these concerns.

One of the keys to success in edutainment, she said, was to use the performing arts to get individuals to first appreciate themselves, and after this point significant progress could be made.

The final presenter was Conroy Wilson, who is the Director of ASHE Productions, one of the popular edutainment groups in Jamaica. His presentation included a special performance by Ashe, demonstrating edutainment in action. He noted that edutainment often called for innovativeness, especially if maximum effectiveness was the goal, while another key to success was finding the correct balance between entertainment and edutainment.

Stabroek News caught up with Latoya Moulton who attended the conference as part of the Jamaica group Ashe.

She teaches Performing Arts at the Kingston High School in Jamaica and says that she had found edutainment to be an effective means of bringing about behaviour change. Since she became involved in Ashe six years ago, she said, she had even noticed changes in her own attitudes.

This event was a joint venture by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, the President’s Youth Award Republic of Guyana (PYARG) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).