Carnival to fill streets with Caribbean colour

FOR more than 40 years, Derby’s Caribbean Carnival filled the city’s streets with colour, dance and music but for the last two years, it has been unable to go ahead.

Finally Carnival is back and volunteers from the Derby West Indian Community Association (DWICA) are working as hard as ever behind the scenes to make sure this year is better than ever.

This year, Derby’s Caribbean Carnival returns on Sunday, July 17 and already DWICA is hard at work making this year’s costumes.

Initially the Caribbean

Carnival was started to improve race relations within the city as families from the West Indies moved to Derby to start a new life. Today, DWICA is working to keep their heritage alive by incorporating more and more influence from Caribbean carnivals from around the world.

One of the key players in making this happen is Derby born and bred, Samantha Hudson who has been lucky enough to witness carnivals in 28 different countries.

She said: “I got involved in carnival from birth basically. I was just born into it, our family and friends were born into carnival. I came to Saturday school here, I came to summer school here and I took part in the Caribbean Carnival as a volunteer. I have helped making costumes, sequins on the little tops and things like that and it all stemmed from there really.”

DWICA was officially formed in 1961 with its community centre, located on Carrington Street in Derby, opening in 1981.

The carnival finds its origins as a small festival back in 1975 however, it was not until 1986 that the event we know and love today took shape.

As to why the Caribbean Carnival is so important to Derby’s West Indian community, Samantha explains: “The tradition of Carnival is the celebration of the emancipation of slavery - when slaves would come out and celebrate and mock and mimic their slave masters and then that is where the carnival was born.”

Samantha used Caribbean carnivals as the focus of her dissertation at University of Derby. As part of that, she was able to go to Trinidad to study at St Augustine’s University.

The Derby West Indian Community Association will be the focus of an exhibition at Derby Museum starting this Friday.