Junior Kadooment returns

It’s beginning to look a lot like Crop-Over as Junior Kadooment returns to the festival’s calendar for the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking during the media launch on Saturday morning at the National Botanical Gardens, Chief Executive Officer of the National Cultural Foundation Carol Roberts reminded those gathered that the event and the wider festival are about more than just the party.

“It is easy to brand Crop-Over as a big party and then a huge masquerade procession in the street, whether in the cool of dawn as in Foreday Morning or under bright, glaring sunshine on a day like today on Grand Kadooment Day. Crop-Over is much more than that, and to ensure its viability and sustainability, feeder programmes such as the Junior Masquerade project, which then showcases itself in the Sunshine Snacks Junior Kadooment is absolutely critical,” she said.

Roberts thanked all of the community groups, parents and schools that are involved in the masquerade programme, along with the designers and leaders who make the event possible every year.

Moments before handing over a $150,000 cheque, Kathryn Inniss, Assistant General Manager for Sunshine Snacks, the event’s title sponsor, said the event celebrated the creativity of the island’s youth.

“At Sunshine Snacks, we believe that supporting and contributing to Barbadian culture is not only important to our company, but the wider Caribbean community,” she stressed, while urging people to go out in their numbers to the event.

Twenty-nine bands with their Junior Kings and Queens are registered to cross the stage during the July 15 event, which will feature amongst other things, a Party Zone and a Cool Down Zone. In addition, the Junior Monarch Finals will be held later in the evening.