1 week ago
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Belize is working to strengthen its cultural and creative industries after a recent exchange visit to Trinidad and Tobago held from June 9 to 12. The visit was part of the second phase of Belize’s National Strategy and Roadmap for the Cultural and Creative Sector, a UNESCO-supported project launched in 2025 to create more opportunities for artists and creative workers in the country. Institute Creative Arts Director Kim Vasquez and Project Coordinator Kathya Castaneda took part in the visit. While there, they met with government officials, cultural groups, and creative businesses to learn how Trinidad and Tobago supports areas like Carnival, cultural tourism, artisans, and creative entrepreneurship. One of the main outcomes was stronger ties between Belize and Trinidad and Tobago, with both sides discussing future cooperation to help grow Belize’s creative sector. Speaking to Love News, Vasquez said the team was warmly welcomed throughout the trip. She described it as short but very busy and productive, with many meetings that gave useful insights into how Trinidad and Tobago develops its creative industries.
Kim Vasquez, Director ICA NICH: “The peer to peer exchange program is a program that connects culture practitioners, people working in art and culture with their counterparts in other parts of the world or regionally. This is to have an exchange on best practices, information sharing, and learning from each other, gaining support from each other, establishing partnerships. What this peer to peer did was to kind of prime us and give us some ideas to expose us to a different perspective to different practices, to different policies that Trinidad and Tobago has and again for us to share. It gives us a chance to talk and dialogue which puts us in a mindset as we’re getting ready to move into the second phase of the project. I am really pleased to share that came out of it were some of the second hand gains or benefits that came out of the peer to peer. Yes we were there to dialogue and to learn and to exchange ideas but being there of course in person and you start engaging with other agencies you see where you can move beyond the peer to peer and where we can have long term relationships or we can have collaborations and partnerships and there’s room and space for this.”
Vasquez added that the work continues after the trip. The team is now putting together what they learned from the visit and will use it to develop recommendations to help strengthen Belize’s cultural and creative industries.
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