RUBiS ‘InPulse’ brings hope and art to east Kingston again

The Rubis Mécénat Cultural Fund has partnered with RUBiS Energy Jamaica for another year of the InPulse Art Project.

This initiative is ongoing and started in 2015 as a creative platform and a skills-development programme. Through this programme, RUBiS Energy Jamaica seeks to give young people the necessary tools and skills to join the local art community in a sustainable way. RUBiS awards scholarships to the most promising students from the cohort to pursue tertiary education at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

InPulse began in Jamaica after an initial sociocultural project launched in South Africa in 2012; the fund partnered with the group’s Jamaican subsidiary to develop a long-term initiative based in the Dunoon Park community in east Kingston. With odds such as high youth unemployment rates and violence stacked against the young people of these Kingston communities, the Rubis Mécénat Cultural Fund launched the InPulse programme to help alleviate this problem.

“Through the introduction of a range of visual and performing arts concepts, InPulse students are given an opportunity to develop their creative talents, alongside a foundational academic programme. It seeks to promote a durable alternative for the personal development of the local Kingston youth by offering them new opportunities and tools to thrive in an often unstable and precarious environment,” says Lorraine Gobin, managing director, Rubis Mécénat Cultural Fund.

Following the very successful exhibition of students’ work staged in 2017, the project team wanted to expand the scope to showcase the vast range of art forms while involving its local community. This inspired the staging of the InPulse Arts Festival. The InPulse Arts Festival has been crafted to be an art festival with a twist – an interactive, community-based platform to display the works of the students in the programme, their mentors, and special guest artists. It will also give members of the east Kingston community an opportunity to be an artist for a day as they will get to try their hand at various art forms and be part of the creation of a community mural.

Jamaica has a dynamic culture and art scene, and the festival will mimic that with the inclusion of student and mentor exhibitions, film screenings, live art workshops, art talks, animation photo booths and live entertainment. There will also be something for all levels of artists and art enthusiasts. InPulse takes place tomorrow, November 9, 2019, at the Dunoon Park Technical High School from 11 a.m., – 6 p.m.