Culture staff complete folklore course |09 April 2005

The participants received their certificates from principal secretary for Sports and Culture Patrick Nanty in a small ceremony held recently at the La Bastille.

The five-month course, which ran from February to July last year, was facilitated by Professor Lee Haring of the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, U.S.A.

Through this course, which was conducted by Professor Lee via e-mail, the participants got the opportunity to widen their knowledge on the methods and theories of folklore study. 

The participants of the course had to do field work as well as written assignments.
When it first started in February last year a total of 15 staff enrolled but then the number of participants went down to 11.

According to Penda Choppy, the director of Lenstiti Kreol who was a participant of the course, Seychellois people, like all people around the world, have our folklore which is our traditional art, literature, knowledge and practice which should be preserved.

“To be able to preserve our folklore we need to learn the formal structure on how to study folklore and apply these techniques in our day-to-day job. And that was what we learned,” Mrs Choppy said.

Mr Marcel Rosalie, the advisor at the National Heritage, said that, in spite of the difficulties, the participants persevered and he congratulated them for their hard work.

Mr Rosalie said that following the participants’ success, the Ministry of Local Government, Sports and Culture is looking into the possibility of providing its staff with more training which will enable them to better perform their duty.

He also had words of thanks for all those who have helped in one way or another to the success of the participants.