On Thurs­day 14th April, 2011 the UWI Arts Club held its Cre­ative Day Out Fi­nale, which fea­tured a three part event - a freestyle arts ses­sion at the LRC Greens (UWI), as well as an Art Ex­hi­bi­tion and Con­cert held at JFK Au­di­to­ri­um, UWI. The event start­ed off at 3pm on the lush green fields, where artists came to­geth­er to ex­press their cre­ativ­i­ty. From painters, to po­ets and vo­cal­ists to gui­tarists, the Arts Club had it all. It was in­deed freestyle, as even the most am­a­teur could have tak­en part in this leg of the event.

Any­one who was brave enough to grab a pen­cil and a piece of pa­per showed off their cre­ativ­i­ty as much as they could, with some dis­cov­er­ing that they were much bet­ter than they had ex­pect­ed. Par­tic­i­pants then head­ed to the south­ern side of cam­pus, to view the artis­tic pieces that were on dis­play for the art ex­hi­bi­tion. Tim­o­thy Bootan, a 21-year-old Graph­ic De­sign stu­dent at COSTAATT, was ea­ger to present his art at the ex­hi­bi­tion. One of his pieces en­ti­tled "Why I love Trinidad", showed some of the fe­male races that ex­ists on our is­land; tru­ly and eclec­tic piece.

Bruno Chi, a Bi­ol­o­gy and En­vi­ron­men­tal Stu­dent at UWI stat­ed that the event was ex­cel­lent and should be held more of­ten. Chi pre­sent­ed his piece "Fam­i­ly", which de­pict­ed his broth­er and his nephew. Pe­tra Har­ryper­sad al­so of UWI, stat­ed that it was nice to see that the stu­dents were dis­play­ing their art. "Their work is amaz­ing!" she stat­ed ex­cit­ed­ly. The UWI Arts Club has held these events in con­junc­tion with many caus­es. Their last Cre­ative Day Out on 24th March raised funds for the earth­quake and tsuna­mi dis­as­ter that oc­curred in Japan. As for this event, em­pha­sis was placed on Autism aware­ness.

De­scribed as a com­plex de­vel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ty, it is a re­sult of a neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­der that af­fects the func­tion­ing of the brain. Pres­i­dent of the Autis­tic So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Teresina Sie­u­nar­ine, was al­so present, to give a fea­ture ad­dress on Autism. All par­tic­i­pants were ex­posed to many of the ef­fects of the dis­or­der, and its im­pact on many chil­dren's lifestyles. Al­so present was Nicole Bachan of Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (and gieMAGAZINE), who pre­sent­ed a cheque to Sie­u­nar­ine in the sum of $500. Par­tic­i­pants of the event re­ceived gieMAGAZINES, METRO Mag­a­zines as well as oth­er brand­ed ma­te­r­i­al.

The event closed off with a two hour long con­cert fea­tur­ing some freestyle foot­ball skills by the very tal­ent­ed, Marc Tay­lor, as well as the deeply spo­ken words of Gary Acos­ta, who spoke very in­tu­itive­ly of the typ­i­cal Uni­ver­si­ty girl. Kali­fa Damani, pres­i­dent of the UWI Arts Club, pulled off the en­tire event, with­out the help of a struc­tured com­mit­tee, but through the ded­i­ca­tion of her friends and her artis­tic part­ners. To­geth­er they were able to cul­mi­nate and event for the en­tire stu­dent pop­u­la­tion to en­joy. We con­grat­u­late the Arts Club.

Sha­had Ali

Se­nior Press Pass Cor­re­spon­dent

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies