PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – This year, nice things are happening to Loekie Morales. Aruban Department of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports has translated her ‘Overseas Bloodline’ story into Papiamento ‘Sanger ta Yama’ and her‘Magic Wedding Cake’ is also translated to ‘E Bolo di Batrei Magico’ and spread to all Aruban schools as educational reading material.
This time around Loekie Morales is nominated to get a certificate of honor, for ‘GREAT WORKS’ done for the communities of Sint Maarten and Curaçao. The recognition will be issued by THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE COMMISSIONED CORPS, a humanitarian organization for the defense and protection of life in cooperation with thinkers – founders- builders in Brazil.
Morales is INVITED to the AWARD CEREMONY to receive a CERTIFICATE OF HONOR, because she is
considered to be a thinker, founder and builder especially for those communities. The celebration and hand over of certificates will take place on Sunday, October 27 th in Curacao.
Beyond Kultura Events Foundation is proud of its president, Loekie Morales, who is not only a well-known author in the Dutch Caribbean, but also an environmentalist and a humanitarian. When it comes to helping other organizations achieving their goals, she is there to put her shoulder under the works to be done. With her programs via Beyond Kultura Events Foundation, she has managed to invent and organize storytelling and story reading programs, where many adults were trained in reading and telling stories to the youth. These adults have executed the reading and storytelling to thousands of children on Sint Maarten. Enhancing the youth’s vocabulary and broadening their world and vision, is one of the objectives of this program, next to getting fun in reading.
Thousands of books of the author were donated to schools in the Dutch Caribbean over the last 19 years. Zonnesproetjes, Tropisch Nestje, Papito and the Story Telling Tree, Bonte Boel, Mina Marina, The Magic Wedding Cake and Chella and the Weird Woman went to primary schools, while Overseas Bloodline and now La Sangre Llama were distributed among high schools. With the distribution of Mina Marina, a musical with same name has been conducted by Imbali, again subsidized back then in 2008 and 2009 by Beyond Writing Foundation. Loekie Morales was in charge of getting subsidies, so every child of the primary schools on Sint Maarten could enjoy the musical of Mina Marina for free in the Philipsburg, Cultural and Community Center. With this musical they could learn how to respect our nature and keep ponds, ocean and all waters of our planet clean.
Morales is also responsible for making documentaries like ‘10 years of Beyond Writing Foundation’, ‘The Caribbean Living Statues Festival’, ‘Overseas Bloodline comes to live’ and she is now busy making a documentary on ’50 years of Casa Manita’, an orphanage in Curaçao that is responsible for shaping the lives of thousands of women in Curaçao between 1969 and now.
Morales was the inventor of ‘The Caribbean Living Statues Festivals (CLSF)’ conducted between 2011 and 2015 in Sint Maarten. This is a price winning festival of performing arts, where a culmination takes place of creative thinking and performing, in combining the several Arts forms with the culture and history of country Sint Maarten. The CLSF is a one of a kind in the Caribbean and happened on Sint Maarten. BKE has published a book with the first two editions of the Caribbean Living Statues Festival.
Loekie Morales: “I am most honored by this recognition. It motivates me more, to keep on doing what is best for the communities I am part of.”
