BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE CHILDREN who brought good tidings and joy during the Christmas season when they performed as a part of Winston Zack’s International Cultural Youth Group were rewarded on Friday, Jan. 6.
About nine members of the group received exercise books, geometry sets, pens and T-Pex for school and Winston Zack Nisbett, founder and manager of the cultural youth group said he was able to purchase the materials from funds he collected as donations when they performed at various venues including Best Buy Supermarket and Caribe Café.
Last summer, about 51 children graduated from Nisbett’s instrumental workshop where they learnt to play the Fife, Banjo, Quatro and Guitar after attending classes during the month-long sessions.
In a small ceremony at Zack’s Cultural Museum, he said that he was proud of the children and that they played in quite a professional way.
Lloyd Lazaar who was also a part of the workshop told the children that they learned to play the guitar and banjo but they also learnt other things.
“You learned to help each other, you learned to be kind; you learned to be thoughtful and to respect one another. And I want to put a challenge to you all to make sure these things you have learnt here are not wasted but utilized well, so that you will not only be outstanding guitar players, musicians and cultural artists but you will also be educated.
“That you will realize that life has a wide variety of values; you could also go back to school and show your school colleagues how good it is when you work hard there is an opportunity for you to get something back in return,” he said.
Lazaar continued: “But at the same time you must always prepare to do your best, not because you are going to get something back in return but because you need to always do the best that you can so that you will always have a good reputation as a decent and hard working individual.”
Nisbett said that they were also able to make the senior citizens happy when they performed for them as they went from house to house performing.
He said the audiences were thrilled by their performances and that they were also invited to the Governor General’s home where they had an excellent showing.
He lauded Robert ‘Bobby’ Martin for taking his time and patience to teach the children the various instruments, something he did without payment, Nisbett said.
He also revealed that along with teaching the children the various cultural instruments, he will also have someone come in and teach them how to read music and will start another session where new children can learn to play the instruments soon.
