3rd Meeting of the Africa Caribbean and Pacific Ministers of Culture Meeting in Brussels attended by Minister of Tourism and Culture from Seychelles
Minister Alain St.Ange (front) with (back, L to R) Principle Secretary Benjamine Rose, Special Advisor Raymonde Onezime, and Ambassador Vivienne Fock Tave / Photo from Seychelles Ministry of Tourism and Culture
BRUSSELS [ ABN NEWS ] — Alain St.Ange, the new Minister with the responsibility for Culture in the Republic of the Seychelles, was in Brussels this week for the 3rd Meeting of the Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Ministers of Culture. This was the first ACP Ministers Meeting being attended by the new Seychelles Minister responsible for Culture.
Minister St.Ange was accompanied by Miss Vivienne Fock Tave, the Seychelles Ambassador accredited to Belgium and the European Union; Miss Benjamine Rose, the Principle Secretary for Culture; Mrs. Raymonde Onezime, the Minister’s Special Advisor; and Miss Beryl Samson, the Minister Counselor at the Seychelles Embassy in Belgium.
The two-day meeting of the 2012 Ministers Meeting at ACP House in Brussels was called under the theme “No Future Without Culture.” The Ministers Meeting saw two African Presidents visit the ACP House in Belgium to address them. The two African Heads of State were the President of the African Union, HE the President of Benin Dr. Yayi Boni, and the President of Senegal HE Mr. Macky Sall.
It was Ms. Ama Tutu Muna, the Minister of Arts and Culture from the Cameroon, who presided over the Ministers Meeting, and she was assisted by Mrs. Michele Dominique Raymond, the Assistant Secretary General of the ACP in Brussels.
“The meeting was long and varied but many positive resolutions came through at the end. This meeting saw Ministers coming from three blocks of Member States, (Africa, Caribbean, and Pacific) sitting together with the one objective of moving forward the cultural agenda,” Minister St.Ange said.
Seychelles was a supportive ACP Member in the many discussions, saying that for them, tourism was the pillar of their economy, but that it was clear that they would have no tourism without culture and that to have culture they needed their people to be involved.
Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture, said at the end of the 3rd ACP Ministers of Culture Meeting that he had found the discussions and the different addresses enriching. “The small man has the chance to be a real man through culture. This message came through this trans-hemispheric grouping of the ACP. In Seychelles, the importance of culture is clearly understood which is why culture is part and parcel of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture as the name indicates. Tourism is the pillar of the Seychelles economy, but culture is and will remain crucial to our country’s sustainable development, and it is through culture that we will safeguard what we value,” Minister Alain St.Ange told the press at the ACP Ministers Meeting in Brussels.
