THE BOTTOM- A delegation of the Culture Department of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) visited Saba on Monday, October 24 and Tuesday, October 25 to meet with the Public Entity Saba and with the local stakeholders.

The Public Entity Saba is one of the parties that signed the Culture Covenant on September 27 this year. The other co-signatories were the Netherlands, Bonaire and St. Eustatius. As part of the Culture Covenant, the Caribbean Netherlands islands each will implement a culture agenda. The Ministry of OCW wants to work on 16 areas of cooperation with the islands.

The topics of the culture covenant are: international, inter-island collaboration; culture education and language development; culture participation; general culture heritage; colonial past/slavery commemoration; public collections; built heritage; immaterial heritage; archaeology; underwater archaeology; heritage and spatial development; cultural heritage during a crisis; libraries; digitizing; archives and archive storages; culture and entrepreneurship.

On Saba, the five-member delegation was accompanied by policy advisor with culture responsibilities Elsa Peterson and they met with Commissioner of Cultural Affairs Rolando Wilson, members of the schools, local artists, the museums, the library, the Saba Heritage Center, Child Focus, the Culture Policy Committee and the Saba Association of Caribbean States which is the local coordinator for the Culture Participation Fund.