Would you like to PLAY?
The PLAY Foundation (Positive Leaders Active Youth), is a charity organisation making a difference for underprivileged students through the unique approach of the performing arts. PLAY is not just a name, however, but a representation of the fun to be had from the theatre for their charges.
The foundation was conceptualised and created entirely by teenagers and young adults and is the brainchild of drama aficionado and law student at the University of the West Indies, Romane Duncan and his co-founders and fellow students Kristoff Frank, Joel Nelson, Brandon Ten-Fah, Rojane Rose and Kheenoe Wallace. PLAY is aimed at giving inner-city youth a useful and interesting forum for their talents and time.
Their motto ‘Creating your own Limelight’ represents the aim of empowering inner-city youth through the performing arts, helping inner-city youth to be prevalent for things other than some of the undesirable things which permeates our media. That is not the only way that PLAY defies the status quo as it is an unusual All-Male initiative seeking to uplift their contemporaries.
As one of the partners in this joint initiative, Duncan said, “We conceptualised putting on a production with students from an inner-city all-age and all the proceeds would go back to the school to aid in the development of the school and students. This ideology we took from the maxim, ‘Give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime’.”
They embarked on a study to find the most needy, conducive and feasible school for their project, after organising a shortlist of primary, junior high and all-age schools over the Corporate Area. John Mills Preparatory is the school that was chosen and since then the foundation has been working with their students to put on a stellar production. For the past few weeks they say they have been busy organising, contacting sponsors, performing arts groups, and anyone they believe able to help these students to create their own limelight.
PLAY is working towards an April 11 production and invites teens and adults alike to come and be a part of their vision. Do you want to PLAY?
