On Thurs­day 24th March, 2011, stu­dents of the­Uni­ver­si­ty­of the West In­dies (UWI) gath­ered on the lush, green field at the Learn­ing Re­source Cen­tre (UWI) to share and prac­tice their artis­tic gifts. Scenic paint­ings, live acoustic mu­sic as well as the art ofknit­ting, were just some of the many ac­tiv­i­ties stu­dents en­gaged them­selves in on the day. The "Cre­ative Day Out" was not just re­strict­ed to stu­dents who were pro­fi­cient in the arts; stu­dents who were now pick­ing up coloured pen­cils for the first time were al­so en­cour­aged to at­tend.

The event, host­ed by the UWI Arts Club, was presided over by Year two stu­dent, Kali­fa Damani. Ac­cord­ing to Damani, "This was the sec­ond Cre­ative Day Out and the events have yield­ed con­sid­er­able in­ter­est amongst the stu­dent body. The UWI Arts Club aims to form a cre­ative net­work across the cam­pus, it al­so aims to pro­vide a means for cre­ative in­di­vid­u­als to learn, be sup­port­ed and grow through prac­tice,en­cour­age­ment and ex­po­sure."

The club does not on­ly aim to de­vel­op the cre­ative stu­dents on the cam­pus, but al­so hosts these events with­hu­man­i­tar­i­an­ef­forts. This Cre­ative Day Out was ded­i­cat­ed to rais­ing funds for those af­fect­ed by the earth­quake and tsuna­mi in Japan. This was done in con­junc­tion with Red Cross T&T. The UWI Arts Club was able to raise a grand to­tal of $702.00. Ac­cord­ing to par­tic­i­pant Nan­di­ni Out­har, "The Cre­ative Day Out is quite ex­cit­ing and amaz­ing. It al­lows one to ex­press one's feel­ings. This should be pushed fur­ther out to al­low more per­sons to re­lax and be in touch with their cre­ative sides". Pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er Joshua Brizan al­so com­pli­ment­ed the club stat­ing that the event was very dif­fer­ent. He added "there are not many groups that in­cor­po­rate all types of art."

The UWI Arts Clubs is plan­ning to have one more event be­fore the se­mes­ter ends. Pres­i­dent Kali­fia Damani says that it more than like­ly would be an­oth­er Cre­ative Day Out, or a vari­a­tion of the event which may­in­cor­po­rate­more per­for­mances and the­atri­cal artists. The date for the event would ei­ther be on the 14th or 21st, April. Any­one can join the club, so if you are in­ter­est­ed in meet­ing with oth­er artis­tic in­di­vid­u­als, you can search for the group on face­book for mor­e­in­for­ma­tion. SEARCH: UWI ARTS CLUB