And now that the festival is over, the government is getting ready for the September Celebrations. The Minister of Culture said that the ministry has a lot planned this year - which will be the first September in two years that these events will be taking place.
He explained more:
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I'm very excited about this year's September celebrations. Tomorrow we have a meeting with the National Celebrations Commission, so we have a great and exciting calendar. As usual, we are collaborating with all our stakeholders in culture. So, some of the big events we are planning for September 10th, Independence Day of course. We also have the carnival, as the Carnival Association described it, we are back on the road, so they are excited about that. I think that will be a big show for the Belizean people, as well we have some other new events that we started last year but those were virtual so I don't think the people got the opportunity to fully embrace and appreciate them. Those were the awards ceremony we started, every year and it's a public ceremony. The Belizean people nominate individuals for these specific awards for example the Andy Palacio prize for music, the Leela Vernon prize for creole culture and that sort of thing, a number of other prizes as well. We also have a, we've collabed with the University of Belize to set up last year, a state of the nation discussion where the experts from UB lead that discussion to talk about the state of our nation. We are doing that again this year and we hope to have a big audience this year. We have a youth summit as well, we started that last year, we are having that on the calendar this year. A National Youth Summit where the young people take the lead and talk about the state of our nation as well. So, a number of exciting initiatives on the calendar along with the usual traditional stuff. So, I think it's going to be a fantastic year, we were advised by the Ministry of Health that things are under control and we hope it stays that way so that we can put on a great show for the Belizean people."
