By Roy Sanford, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
ORGANISERS OF the inaugural Peters-field Sugar Cane Festival in Westmoreland are optimistic that the new venture will be a success in its bid to raise funds for the school in the community.
The festival, which takes place on Sunday at the Petersfield High School, is also expected to sensitise patrons to the historical significance and the inner workings of the sugar industry on the island.
"Petersfield is located in the sugar belt of Westmoreland," Virginia Turner, the public relation officer for the event, told The Gleaner. "About 60 per cent (of the) people in the area are employed in sugar, yet people take the industry for granted. So we hope to sensitise and educate people on the working of the industry."
She added that talks of the closing down of the industry have caused much concern among the people and it is important that they are sensitised to the impact of such a move on the area. "We want to expose people to the importance of sugar on the area," she noted.
However, the primary aim of the festival is the raising of funds for a reading centre at the Petersfield High School.
"Many of the students who come to this school from the local schools are semi-literate," Basil Chambers, principal of the Petersfield High School, said. "So we thought that such a festival would be of great importance for us."
The festival is slated to open at 8:00 a.m. with a parade of tractors (that transport sugar cane from the fields to the factory) from Frome via Hendon to Petersfield. A float will precede it with the reigning Petersfield School, Shrewsbury and Jamaica Cultural Development Committee Festival queens. Two plays, The Death of F Minus and Anansi and Typhoid, are also expected to be part of the day's activities.
The organisers are expected to display a wide range of stalls that will exhibit the variety of sugar cane and their by-products as well as non-food products such as bagasse, animal feed and rubbing alcohol.
A forum honouring and celebrating the contribution of sugar, its primary and secondary products and its by-products to the economy of Jamaica, is also expected to be held.
The patrons of the festival are the Nigerian High Commissioner to Jamaica, Florentina Ukonga, and Cuban Ambassador Francisco Piedra Rencurrell.
Mr. Chambers hopes that the festival will become an annual event.
"We are going to see how things work out this year, isolate any weaknesses and see how we can improve the event for the future," he noted.
