Gadsby-Dolly: Culture Ministry preparing for when stay-at-home ends

Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly MP for St Ann’s East constituency and Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts says her constituency office has distributed over 600 hampers to constituents.

She says the constituency has quite a number of people who have been affected by the stay-at-home regulations and who have been let off from their jobs.

Some of them had reduced pay up to April 15 and, after the extension, would have fallen off of their payrolls, she said in a phone interview with Newsday on Sunday.

Gadsby-Dolly said, in addition to the hampers, constituents are told of the Government’s relief efforts to assist during the covid19 pandemic.

She added that there were quite a number of parents who were looking forward to the relief in terms of the food card.

Dr Gadsby-Dolly said the constituency office has not been operating every single day. The first batch of the 600 hampers was distributed in the first week of the stay-at-home regulations.

The office is now into its fifth week of hamper distribution.

She said names for the hampers were received from village councils and the community. Hampers are done every month in her constituency and so there is a database of people who are needy.

She said, as MP, she liaised with principals to get supplies to the neediest as they came in batches and the office did not have all of the food cards for the parents at the same time.

“We really do try to get the neediest cases first and I, as MP, have put my number out there so people can interact with me directly whether I am sending them the forms, flyers online and all of that.”

As the Culture Minister, Gadsby-Dolly said everyone was looking to see what is happening, locally, globally and internationally.

She has been in contact with regional ministers of culture and they have been discussing how the covid19 pandemic affects the region.

She added that there were cancellations of major events in the region, the most recent being the cancellation of Barbados’ Crop Over.

Barbados’ National Cultural Foundation made the official announcement on April 19.

She said the region was looking at the situation and preparing for what is to come.

She added the ministry has been looking at the extensions and trying to see how it was going to orient itself.

She said there was one online Live at Lunch (a monthly lunchtime concert), and the ministry might consider having another one, but with many artistes doing digital concerts it might feel like duplication.

She added the ministry had been engaged over the last three weeks to get artistes to bring across messages about covid19 and staying home. Staff members were now also getting involved, telling people what they missed about the pre-covid19 times and that they are looking forward to the recovery time.

She said the ministry’s programmes were very interactive and stay-home measures and social distancing affected them in an extreme way. Many of the ministry’s programmes have been put off.

She said if the country was able to have any relaxation at all after April 30 then that would determine what the ministry can or cannot do.

“If we cannot have an interaction we will look at having some of the smaller classes online,” she said.