Minister Gumbs: St. Maarten ready to reintroduce itself at CARIFESTA 2025

Great Bay--St. Maarten is preparing to reintroduce itself to the Caribbean at CARIFESTA 2025, the region’s premier festival of arts and culture, set for August 22–31 in Barbados. Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport (ECYS) Melissa Gumbs underscored that this year’s participation marks not only her own introduction to the region as minister, but also the island’s opportunity to showcase its cultural growth on a collective stage after years of absence from the festival.

“For St. Maarten, I think it’s a reintroduction of ourselves,” Minister Gumbs said during her appearance on the government’s Inside Government program with Cedric Peterson. “Our music, art, fashion, and film scenes have exploded over the last few years, and we haven’t had this platform to show the rest of the region what we’ve been up to.”

“For myself, it’s my introduction to the region as the minister responsible for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, and as someone who has always advocated for greater regional collaboration with our immediate neighbors and our more distant Caribbean neighbors. It’s definitely a chance to make that a reality, something I advocated for prior to becoming minister from the floor of Parliament.

Minister Gumbs explained that the goal was to create a delegation that was “small but impactful,” given limited resources, while still representing the island’s diverse cultural talent.

“For me, it’s a return to who we are, maintaining our cultural practices, our activities, and our history. I’ve always said we need to begin documenting these things, showing the rest of the region what we are about. From a community engagement perspective, it’s a continuation of what began with our Emancipation celebrations earlier this year: returning to our Caribbean, ancestral ways of expression. A bigger delegation in the future should include artists from the French side and even Saba and Statia. Our Caribbean community is something we don’t engage with often enough. This is a step towards greater collaboration."

The Minister also stressed the festival’s importance in shaping St. Maarten’s national identity and inspiring youth. “CARIFESTA gives us the opportunity to make that stamp, to say: this is who we are as a people. Every island is looking forward to that. For St. Maarten, this is a great way to strengthen national identity. We often hear that we don’t have an identity, but this is how we begin shaping it with our regional brothers and sisters.

"If I had the resources, I would have taken all of the Art Saves Lives students with us to Barbados. Hopefully in the future, we can also partner with the business community to ensure that St. Maarten’s young people are represented on the regional stage. That would be my dream: to see them embedding themselves in our culture and heritage, and then taking that forward regionally and globally.”

The Minister praised the Department of Culture for their leadership and coordination. “They have coordinated everything. I had an update meeting yesterday, and I must commend them for the hard work. Coordinating travel is not easy, even if it’s just to Barbados. They’ve done a remarkable job in ensuring everything is in order, from travel to showcasing the delegation. I won’t reveal too much, because I want everyone to see it live once it happens. But I am very much looking forward to walking in with our delegation and showing who we are as St. Maarten.”

As CARIFESTA 2025 draws near, Minister Gumbs emphasized that St. Maarten’s participation is not just about performance, but about asserting the island’s place within the Caribbean cultural landscape.

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