High school students, businesses participate in career fair on Nevis

By Devonne Cornelius

St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Hundreds of young people participated in a career fair hosted at the ‘De Cultural Village’ in Nevis on Friday, March 25, 2022. 

Organized by the Nevis Youth Careers Expo (NYCE), the career fair featured a number of businesses from across the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis. A wide cross-section of businesses were represented including media; performing arts and culture; law; culinary arts and hospitality; tourism; science, technology, engineering and mathematics; law enforcement; fire and rescue; banking; and health, among others.

Students of the Nevis Sixth Form College, the Charlestown Secondary School, the Gingerland Secondary School, and the Nevis International Secondary School had an up-close look into the life of professionals of the different careers on display. 

WINN FM spoke with Mrs. Deslyn Williams-Johnson, General Manager of the Nevis Performing Arts Center who gave a detailed explanation of what opportunities one can have in the area of performing arts and culture. She also works closely with the Nevis Cultural Development Foundation. 

“A lot of times our mindset is just that it’s folklore dances but there is more to it than that. We have different careers in anthropology, curator, heritage manager, music director. There are so many areas that you can pursue in culture [and] we are trying to get young people to understand that there is more to culture than meets the eye.”

Mrs. Williams-Johnson is also the owner and founder of House of Arts – The Academy which is an established school on Nevis for training and certification in areas of the literary visual and performing arts. She said the aim is to create a holistic approach to education in the Arts from training to certification. 

“Some of the programs that are offered are theater arts for teens and children, acting for adults as well as our Voices in Harmony Choir and there are several other activities offered. It’s an environment where people are instructed in the arts and given opportunities to showcase in-house, production-wise and in the community, and within all of this, you can pursue theater arts at the CXC level which has three components; dance, acting, drama, or stagecraft.”

WINN FM also participated in the career fair and provided students with information about the different opportunities in media, responded to questions from curious minds about the role of the media and used the opportunity to encourage students to enter the field. 

The Nevis Youth Careers Expo is a youth organization and is the brainchild of Ms. Gabriella Brantley, a final year law student at the University College London. She reached out to her former teacher, Ms. Jahnel Nisbett, who agreed to co-direct and help make the NYCE a reality. Mr. Darc Browne, a final year student at Cardiff Metropolitan University, rounded off the core team, and thus, NYCE was born.