“Become imaginaires.” This encouragement came from Sr Angela Ann Zukowski as she inspired the 49 participants at the opening session of the Caribbean School for Catholic Communication 2006, on Monday, August 7.

As one of the co-founders of the school, she urged participants to become “creative thinkers”. In this the twelfth year of the school at Emmaus Centre, Arima, the theme for this three-year cycle was Communication and the Religious Imagination with this year's sub-theme “Creating A Culture of Peace through Literature”.

Dr Gordon Rohlehr, lecturer in Caribbean Literature at the University of the West Indies, writer and authority on calypso was one of the presenters.

His exposition of the sub-theme showed how Caribbean writers used literature to depict spirituality. He expounded on the work of several writers, including Paula Moore and Kamau Braithwaite to illustrate how they used writing to deal with the culture of violence and crime.

Dr Earl Lovelace – a university lecturer and novelist, honoured the School with his presence on Wednesday, August 9. He shared his thoughts and experiences in his understanding of the religious imagination.

Felix Edinborough (right) interacts with Dr Gordon Rohlehr. Irtha Daniel photos

Two video production students practice live tapings on the grounds of the Emmaus Centre at last week's Communication School.

Radio workshop

This Trinidadian novelist, born in Toco, gave us insights into the events that defined his character and writings. Using excerpts from some of his books such as Salt, Dragon Can't Dance, and Wine of Astonishment, he developed on the themes endurance, betrayal, freedom and reparation.

“People who are shackled are experts on freedom”, said Dr Lovelace as he illustrated for us that through our everyday struggles, we learn to appreciate our freedom.

This year “grounding exercises” were introduced to participants from around the Caribbean region including Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St. Croix and St. Lucia not forgetting the local contingent.

This was implemented so that participants who completed the three-year cycle would have a strong spiritual understanding of communications.

These “grounding exercises” took the form of three group session in which participants had to grapple with challenging questions linking one’s understanding of spirituality, religious imagination and literature. The group discussion that ensued were quite lively.

A variety of workshops were offered. They included journalism, audio, video, creating media themes and newly introduced web page design, which was facilitated by past graduates, Amina Blugh and Christian Garcia.

Other workshop facilitators included Sr Angela Ann Zukowski and Sherry Ann from the USA, Monsignor Patrick Anthony from St Lucia, Javier Molina from Belize, Gitlin Aleong and Lisa Bhajan from Trinidad.

In addition to the workshop sessions, on evenings participants viewed the movie The Mystic Masseur, participated in a cultural presentation (Wednesday), and prepared presentations for the final session on Saturday.

Report by: Vera Allen, Dalton Bardouille, Nikita Braxton, Petra George, Sr Elma Gustave, Adrian Hercules, Annabella Morenzie, Rosetta Ransome and Raycy Rousseau (Journalism workshop).