Heartist Association for Young Creatives servicing every field

What is the “Heartist Association for Young Creatives”?

Founded in 2016 February, this organization is an arts and entertainment group that provides services in every creative field: visual arts, music, dance, drama, arts education and arts management. Having recognized the need for development of the arts in our country and its potential in bringing revenue into the country by creating an internationally accreditable team: endeavouring to give our generation a chance to develop a livelihood in the creative arts and reducing involvement in violence. However, our team also advocates for people by strategically using its talents to bring awareness and possible solutions to social issues. We are a creative driven group that also develops social skills, such as leadership and entrepreneurship and base all that we do with love; hence, the reason we are known as heartist, artist/ artiste that truly cares… as we say, “where the heart is the art is, we care”. The current membership comprises fifty-two (52) official members, thirty-eight (38) unofficial members and growing. Have hosted events such as our Kids Circus Fair, Art Exhibition and our Free Hugs which we intend to do annually.

History of the Free Hugs

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, a man whose sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives. In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs Campaign became phenomenal.

The Free Hugs Campaign In London: Juan Mann

The video became a viral hit. David Baurch of web video measurement service tubemogul tells us there are 1,279 “free hugs” response videos to the original “free hugs campaign,” with over 38 million views. Meanwhile, Mann and Moore’s original video has been viewed over 61 million times.

Other organizations have dedicated time to this campaign.

Carol Miller organizes global Free Hugs Day every year, as well as other events in something like a hundred countries every year.

Ken Nwadike Jr started the Free Hugs Project. He willingly goes into conflict zones, to get between the people and the police; placing himself at great risk to try and promote peace on the front lines is quite impressive.

Why we Hug? 

Free Hugs Project: continuing the nonviolent movement of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, the mission of the free hugs project is to spread love, inspire change, and raise awareness of social issues.

Our mission in passing on this worldwide growing campaign is to create an intimate bond with people from different walks of life, by defusing division, so it causes us to want to help and support each other. We will be hosting this campaign each year to tackle a different social issue that affects the nation and the world on a whole. This year we decided to campaign against domestic violence, which is one of the most popular social issues that affect this island. Little to no justice or support is given to victims and survivors; so apart from showing love and unity to and amongst our people, we go a step further by displaying the harsh reality of what affects our nation, its causes and possible solutions. As a creative group, we take every opportunity to utilize what we know best, the arts. By utilizing each division within the Heartist organization, namely, visual arts, music, dance, drama, arts education and arts management, to strategically depict this message. We will have our march around Kingstown and commence at the Bayview car park, where we entertain our supporters by highlighting domestic violence and have a continuation of it on the road, display the causes, effects and possible solutions. We can’t approach this issue like we have done for years: it hasn’t had much impact; we intend to have this because we want and need change for the future of the core of the nation, our women and children. Our road display would be like no other and we guarantee that there would not be another like it in SVG and perhaps the world. We hope to make enough noise that it creates change. Although we are not the organizers of this campaign, we are happy that we can be a part of this movement and spread goodwill.