KINGSTON, Jamaica – Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia Grange says that entry to this year’s Emancipation Jubilee will be free of cost.

The announcement was made at the recent launch of the event at Jewels Paradise Cove in Runaway Bay, St Ann, according to a release from the ministry.

The annual Emancipation Jubilee celebration, organised by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust takes place on July 31 at the Seville Heritage Park in St Ann.

Grange said that Emancipation Jubilee “allows us to celebrate a culture that is distinctly ours – Jamaican, but influenced largely by what is distinctly African – that survived the years of enslavement – a success that we owe to our ancestors who in their own relentless ways ensured that what was culturally endemic to them remained intact in a society that was alien to them.”

“We are happy to say that this year Emancipation Jubilee is free. It won’t cost you a penny,” Grange said.

She explained that tickets will be printed for crowd control purposes.

The event, now in its twentieth year, is being observed under the theme, ‘Jamaica 55, Mek Wi Keep Jubilee Alive!’.

It features various presentations of traditional Jamaican culture including Kumina, Johnkoonoo and other folk forms as well as a re-enactment of the reading of the 1838 Emancipation Proclamation granting freedom from slavery to all Jamaicans.