The Sint Maarten Seniors and Pensioners Association is very pleased with the theme of this year’s Sint Maarten’s Day Celebration: "Back in the Days". The SMSPA wants to comment the Government and the Sint Maarten’s Day Celebration Committee for paying attention to Sint Maarten back in the days as a way to preserve part of our cultural history. The Seniors and Pensioners Association wants to contribute to the Sint Maarten Day preperations and celebrations by informing the community about life in Sint Maarten back in the days. To this end the association will be embarking on a two week awareness program.
THE SMSPA PROGRAM OF ACTIVITIES
The SMSPA program "Sint Maarten yesteryears, nowadays and in future decades" will consist of the following activities:
– interviews in the local media, newspapers, radio and tv programs, will be held during the days leading up to Sint Maarten’s Day with seniors who will be sharing their experiences of living in Sint Maarten back in the days.
– a pilot project will start this week with the Belvedere Community Centre to transfer information and knowledge to the youth in their afterschool program about life in Sint Maarten back in the days, nowadays and in the future.
– an intergenerational family event will be held with story telling, poems, songs, etc. about Sint Maarten yester years, nowadays and in the future decades next week Saturday afternoon, on November the 9th, on the premises of the Belvedere Community Center.
HISTORICAL AWARENESS PILOT-PROJECT:
Students of the fifth and sixth grade in the After School Program of the Belvedere Community Center will get the opportunity to hear from seniors what their parents and grandparents have told them about life in Sint Maarten, and what has been their own experience living in Sint Maarten back in the days. The students on their turn will share with each other what their parents, grandparents and great grandparents have told them of life in Sint Maarten back in those days. The students are expected to reflect about all this information and to form their own opinion about what they have learned from the life in Sint Maarten in former days, life in Sint Maarten now and how they want life to be in the future. On Saturday November the 9th during the intergenerational family event at the Belvedere Community Center these students will present us their opinions about living in Sint Maarten in those days, nowadays and in future decades.
INTERGENERATIONAL FAMILY EVENT
For the intergenerational family event next week Saturday November 9, 2013 from 4 pm -7 pm all families in Sint Maarten are invited. This will be a historic event oprganized by the seniors association in cooperation with the Belvedere Community Center. With this event the Seniors Association and the Belvedere Community Center wants to reactivate the storytelling tradition of the past. Seniors of respectable age will tell in the presence of their children and grandchildren stories of their family life in Sint Maarten yester years. Issues as the hardships endured, the creative solutions to survive, the cooperation and the respect back in those days will be illustrated. The seniors will dialogue with their children and grandchildren about life in Sint Maarten and these issues back in those days and nowadays. The children and grandchildren will be asked to share their opinion about the future life they want to live in Sint Maarten. They will tell which things of the past they want to maintain and which things they want to change or do different in the decades to come. The results of the pilot project with the youth of the After School Program in Belvedere will also be presented in different creative and artistic forms: speeches, poems, songs, sketches, etc. It will be very interesting to hear from these students our future Sint Maarteners, what they have learned during the pilot project from our past generation, and how they want to live in future decades.
COOPERATION OF ALL
The SMSPA wants to continue this tradition of intergenerational storytelling to learn from the past, to think about the present and to help shape the future of Sint Maarten. It is a form to recollect the rich experience of the seniors and to pass it on to future generations. The SMSPA wants to appeal to all members of the press to promote these activities leading up to Sint Maarten’s Day and wants to invite all families in Sint Maarten to listen and start to share their experience and thoughts about living in Sint Maarten back in the days, nowadays and in future decades. Remember the future is now! Whatever we do or do not do NOW will have consequences for the future. So let us support and participate in this program of the seniors and pensioners association and in doing so help to build our future NOW.