Corporate Entities Urged to Sponsor JCDC Competitions

Corporate entities are invited to sponsor upcoming Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) competitions, to help further arts and cultural development in the country.

The JCDC stages annual Festival of the Performing, Visual and Creative Arts competitions to unearth develop and showcase the creative talents of Jamaicans.

Director of Marketing and Public Relations at the JCDC, Stephen Davidson, told JIS News that the competitions provide a perfect opportunity for sponsors to get on board and give back to the human development, and at the same time get a goodwill message across the country and the Diaspora.

“Our programmes and competitions are family oriented and spread across generations, with persons from varying social and economic background, which is a perfect fit for different brands to reach their target audience,” he said, adding that the competitions offer an opportunity for sponsors to have dedicated themes.

“For example, one of our sponsors, the National Health Fund (NHF), is promoting healthy living and that theme can be enthused into a dramatic presentation or a creative writing and that message gets to the participants, the audience, and to the wider Jamaica on the national stage,” he explained.

The JCDC Director of Marketing and Public Relations is urging interested persons or entities to contact the Commission as soon as possible, so as to receive maximum exposure for the different levels of the competitions.

Persons who are interested in sponsoring the competitions may contact the Marketing and Public Relations Department and request a sponsorship proposal for review.

Mr. Davidson also outlined that the opportunity exists to customise the proposals to fit a particular brand into the various competitions and the level at which they plan to participate.

“We are truly grateful for the partnerships with the Culture, Health, Arts, Sports and Education (CHASE) Fund and the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF). They are significant funding partners for us. On an annual basis they carry out their corporate social responsibility by contributing to arts development, because JCDC is more than just a show, competition or a concert,” he said.

“What we do at JCDC is training in arts development, so the workshops are important as they are all in keeping with our mission to unearth, preserve, improve and promote the talent. This goes far beyond performing on stage; it is about making an economic difference, contributing to national development and for personal development,” he added.

For the JCDC 2016 competitions, NHF is sponsoring incentives for teachers and students, groups and individuals for the speech, drama, culinary arts and literary arts categories.

“Culture plays an important role in health and healthy behaviours, so the use of cultural expressions opens the door to reaching individuals and communities and can boost the impact of health promotion,” Chief Executive Officer of the NHF, Everton Anderson, told JIS News in an interview.

He underscored that promoting healthy lifestyles can impact children, not just when they are growing, but for the rest of their lives.

“Forming healthy habits does not occur overnight and the NHF accepts that promoting healthy lifestyles from the early childhood years is critical if we want to reduce many of the diseases that we face as a nation,” the NHF Head said.

Mr. Anderson told JIS News that it is hoped that by participating in the performances or listening to the creative performances on healthy living and on the benefits that the NHF provides, students will accept and practise these behaviours and pass on information to their families.

Entry forms for the competitions are available online at the JCDC website at: www.jcdc.gov.jm; at the JCDC Head Office located at 3-5 Phoenix Avenue, Kingston 10, and at all JCDC parish offices islandwide.