and the National Celebrations Commission along with other partners are
planning on celebrating the occasion with added flare. Activities began
today with the launch of the 2011 September Celebrations calendar of
events. Co-Chair of the National Celebrations Commission, Diane Haylock
highlights some of the main activities planned for this year.
Diane Haylock - Co-chair National Celebrations Commission
"We felt that we needed to do more than simply just have the parties and
the celebratory kind of events and also infuse in it some discourse, some
reflections on what these 30 years of Independence have meant to us as a
people and as a nation. We also realize that everything could not be done
in the month of September so we started the celebrations early by having
this launch today and between now and December there is at least one
activity happening each month. For example in July the University Singers,
which is an internationally renowned choir, will be coming to Belize and
this activity is under the patronage of the Governor General. One of the
activities we are hoping that we will be able to realize is the hosting of
a forum of our four Prime Ministers. The requests have been made but we
don't have confirmation as yet about their participation. They have their
own reflections and views about what these 30 years have meant so it is an
opportunity for them to share their own thoughts and ideas about it and do
some projections about what they would like to see happen in the next 30
years if you will. We are going to be doing a lot of the usual things and
making these things bigger and better so for instance like with carnival,
we've increased the prizes for carnival in a big way. With carnival we are
looking at getting bands to participate not just from Belize City. A new
thing we are doing this year is the Belize sculpture symposium and the
Belize sculpture symposium will take place November 12 to December 10 and
basically what it means is that we will have six to eight sculptors who
will basically be making huge public art size sculptures and these will be
placed in different locations in the country."
For the third year Independence Day will be celebrated in the capital,
Belmopan where a song composed by Frankie Reneau titled "The Hymn for
Belize". The theme for this year's celebrations is "Honoring our History,
Celebrating our Culture, Uniting for Peace."
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