Claudette "Boopie" Smith feels the VI is losing touch of its heritage. Photo: Hezikiah Maddox Photography

Echoing the theme for this year’s festival of “Bringing back our cultural past; Let’s celebrate BVI Festival with class”, Smith, who this year's Road Town festival village was named in honour of, insisted that “this golden story [had] to be told … so that our culture must be restored.”

Smith said that there was an opportunity to do some searching and that as human beings, people tend to forget a past that has worked very well for them and their forefathers, one which unfortunately has been left behind.

She stressed that the importance of this was “so that we as a people know where we are and how much further we need to go.”

Her hope, she remarked, was that, “the Government, Honourables, the church and you the people who have a choice, will see the map that has been laid at our feet.” She advocated that persons “be aggressive in changing the course of our children’s future by thinking outside the box.”

Mrs. Smith said she felt that persons were losing sight of their heritage. “Sometimes it is just about going back to basics. Let us go back to the BVI culture that our forefathers have taught us; the era where the village was raising the children and instilling the culture of respect.”

Smith earned the privilege of having this year’s “Festiville” being named in her honour due to her longstanding contribution over the years spent on the Virgin Islands Festival and Fairs and other committees which she felt had been “a labour of love for [her] beautiful British Virgin Islands”.

Meanwhile, Minister for Education and Culture Hon. Myron Walwyn endorsed the remarks in her charge noting that he remembered “getting some licks for passing people straight” during his youth.