PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – The St. Maarten Carnival Development Foundation (SCDF) has produced a children’s coloring book to be distributed to elementary schools once the new school year gets underway later this month. The coloring book was fully sponsored by Michael Ferrier and Napa.
The initiative of the coloring book is just one of many to continue celebrating 2019, Carnival’s Golden Anniversary year. The foundation is actively trying to re-vive the youth participation and interest in cultural aspects of Carnival and has chosen to so starting with the children in elementary levels. The foundation chose to wait until the opening of the new school year considering April/May was exam time for students and many were already out of school and busy with endo-of-the-year activities.
President of the SCDF Alston Lourens said the coloring book will feature Carnival icons and things typical to Carnival. Well known Carnival artists and other stakeholders will be depicted as well as Carnival trucks, something representative of Calypso, Carnival Village and more. He said the book will be distributed free of charge to children and all drawings is being done by local tattoo artist Chris Shillingford of the company Inkorporated.
“The coloring book will not just be pictures to color. We will also include basic information about each person and thing included in the coloring book. It is important they not only color a picture of Pa Ben (for example) but also learn about how and why he was important to Carnival and St. Maarten,”Lourens said, adding that descriptions are short but to the point.
“Moving forward the SCDF will place a lot of focus on getting young people positively involved in Carnival on all levels. We are using this anniversary year to start this important endeavor and we hope we can get the cooperation of the community for other youth related projects in particular when they are directly involved positively and culturally,” Lourens said
