The Habet Group of Companies sell hardware but you’d be hard pressed to find another company that gives as much back to the community. But now, rather than just handing out, the Habet Group is investing that money in a programme with visible institutional results. It’s called ‘Paint Up Di Place’ but more than just getting people to use Penta paints, which is their flagship product, it encourages students to create art. The challenge of the competition was for students to come up with something essentially Belizean. Here’s what they did.
“We wanted them to capture a spirit of Belize that maybe no one else had thought of before. We wanted their unique take on Belize and what makes someone Belizean.”
And these paintings done by students from across the country from standard four to fourth form capture some sense of that.
“We wanted to make sure we motivated the kids so from the beginning
we set out to include many rewards. One of the rewards was simply for the first twelve $100 because kids like money, who doesn’t like money. The top performer would have gotten $500 and on top of that they would have gotten the mural recreated somewhere in the school as well as have their school painted, the whole school. So we figured not only would the kids would be motivated but the teachers would be motivated and the principals would encourage teachers who will encourage the students and everyone would be motivated because there are so many rewards.”
And the motivation showed with 80 entries – 12 of them were selected. All will be featured on a calendar – but this graffiti styled rendering of Andy Palacio placed first. The artists are from Sacred Heart High and here’s what all they won.
“We got $600 altogether, right here, they are going to paint the school, they are going to paint our mural and we got the satisfaction of winning.”
“We love art so like this is our opportunity to be creative.”
“It is a way in which we are expressing our talent and well we invite everyone else to do the same like we did. We got inspired because he is an icon right now, he will always be an icon because he inspired culture around the world and brought the punta and the Garinagu culture to a world stage.”
