Caribbean Intransit

Carnival is more than culture. It is infrastructure.

In this excerpt from his keynote address, H.E. Joseph Andall, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Trade & Export Development of Grenada, explores how Carnival and festivals can function as economic ecosystems, instruments of cultural diplomacy, and catalysts for regional collaboration.

Drawing connections between the Caribbean, Africa, and the wider diaspora, he proposes a vision where festival calendars are strategically aligned, cultural partnerships are strengthened, mobility is improved, and creative industries are recognized as drivers of sustainable development.

The keynote raises important questions:
• Can growth coexist with authenticity?
• How do we protect cultural ownership while expanding economic opportunity?
• What becomes possible when Caribbean and African festival ecosystems collaborate rather than compete?

This video is a short excerpt from the keynote "Calendaring Routes Across Caribbean, Africa & Beyond," delivered at the Trinidad and Tobago edition of The Meeting Place Festival, held at the Central Bank Auditorium in Port of Spain.

Watch the full keynote here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cYLnbRVjKo

We're excited to begin sharing more of these conversations on YouTube, creating a growing archive of ideas, insights, and dialogue from across the Caribbean, Africa, and the diaspora.

Calendering Routes across Caribbean, Africa & Beyond | T&T activation, Meeting Place Festival Festivals are more than celebrations — they are economic ecosystems...

Sharing our first Outcomes Deck. Read on.

One of the most meaningful aspects of the Johannesburg activation of The Meeting Place Festival was witnessing ideas move from classroom dialogue into real-world cultural activation.

Through our collaborative Festivals & Biennials course engagement between UWI Mona and the University of the Witwatersrand, led by Dr. Brett Pyper , students spent months thinking critically about festivals, biennials, popular culture, creative ecosystems, and transnational collaboration. In Johannesburg, those conversations became practice.

One of the highlights was an all-female panel of creative industry leaders — grounded, strategic, insightful, humorous, and deeply honest about the realities and possibilities of building sustainable cultural ecosystems across Africa and the Caribbean.

Today, we are sharing the first of our evolving Outcomes Decks, shaped in part through the volunteer contribution of one of our South African students, Noluthando. This is part of a wider effort to document, synthesize, and make accessible the knowledge emerging through the Festival Ecosystem.

And this is where we invite you to become part of the process.

Support our stipend fund to engage students and emerging creatives in building our Outcomes Pipeline — helping us document, design, and make this knowledge accessible for the future.

You can support by:
• donating to the work here: https://lnkd.in/eKKQzCTi
• partnering with the ecosystem
• sharing the work
• contributing to the dialogue
• subscribing to our newsletter to access the deck: https://lnkd.in/e_D83wsX

We are building this collectively. Let us know how you would like to engage.

We are delighted to be a this phase of our journey where we can share the amazing conversations and outcomes from the first two legs of Caribbean InTransit The Meeting Place Festival V with you!

We invite you to join us on this journey.

- Subscribe to our Newsletter
- Like our Caribbean InTransit Linkedin Page
- Subscribe to our Youtube page: https://lnkd.in/eq7qadyn

Join the fold!
https://lnkd.in/eTGRnkup


Caribbean InTransit Board
Keith Nurse Kai Crooks-Chissano Tenille Clarke Kyle Maloney Lisa Wickham Kafi A. Martin Jennice Price Angelique F. McKay Marielle Barrow

Caribbean InTransit Consortium
African Partners-Andre Stephen Le Roux IKS consulting Eddie Hatitye Music In Africa Foundation Kwakye Donkor Africa Tourism Partners Bernard Kafui Sokpe Jambo Spaces
Caribbean Partners- Kimberley Demagny Caribeart Renee Robinson, Marc Alain Boucicault Banj Intellect Management Services Camille Selvon Animae Caribe HOUSE

Team Members
Ariann Thompson Chavelle Calliste Danielle Lewis Safiya Hoyte Dr. Brett Pyper Dr. CPA Karimi Ngeera, PhD