In 2022, Go Cultura Foundation wrote to the ministers responsible for economic affairs and culture with a clear message: we were taking a bottom up approach to developing Aruba’s Cultural and Creative Industries. We wanted the sector to understand its own position, bring its knowledge together and take an active role in shaping its future. Four years later, we are still doing the work behind that commitment.
Creating this mapping has required sustained effort. Alongside the work with our research partner, we have been engaging the community, explaining why participation matters and encouraging people to recognise their own place within the sector. Research depends on people being willing to contribute. Every response represents someone taking the time to share something about their work, their circumstances and the opportunities or difficulties they face.
Artists and creatives have also stepped forward to encourage others to participate, including by recording and sharing videos. That contribution deserves recognition. They are helping us reach people we could not reach alone and making the mapping a collective effort. The community is helping build a clearer picture of itself.
The result we are working towards is Aruba’s first comprehensive mapping of its Cultural and Creative Industries. It should give us a stronger foundation for understanding who makes up the sector, how it operates and what it needs to develop. That foundation matters because we have spent enough time speaking about potential without sufficiently understanding the conditions needed to realise it.
Aruba’s Economic Policy 2019–2022 already identified the creative industries among the island’s promising economic sectors. The potential has been acknowledged. The question is what we do with that recognition. Naming a promising sector in a policy document does not tell us how its professionals earn a living, where its businesses struggle or which investments would make the greatest difference. Those questions require research, participation and follow-through. Economic Policy 2019–2022
That is the gap we decided to help close. We could have continued asking when someone else would take the next step. Instead, we committed ourselves to doing the work, and we have stayed with that commitment.
We said the sector would take initiative. We are keeping our word.
As the mapping progresses, we know that organisations and individuals are waiting for the findings. We have also heard claims that the report will be kept hidden, that the data will be sold or that people will have to pay to access the results. I want to address that directly, because speculation should not be allowed to speak for a commitment we made from the beginning.
The report and its findings will be made public when they are formally released. People will not have to pay to read the published report. Public access to the results has always been part of the intention behind this work, and that intention has not changed. We want the knowledge generated through this process to contribute to informed discussion and better decisions across Aruba.
The report will be public. Our work will continue.
There seems to be an assumption that once we have the report, our role will be finished. It will not. This is research we initiated and a report that belongs to Go Cultura Foundation. We will make its findings public because we want this knowledge to contribute to Aruba’s development. Publication does not mark the end of our involvement. We began this trajectory to help develop the Cultural and Creative Industries, and the report will inform the work we carry forward.
While the research is being carried out, we are also preparing the internal documents and organisational foundations for the work that follows. We are thinking through how to translate findings into priorities, how to organise responsibilities and how to move from identifying needs to addressing them. The evidence must guide the decisions, but we do not need to wait until publication to prepare ourselves to act on it.
Two bodies are being developed as part of that preparation: a CCI Association and CreActivo Foundation. Their roles are distinct, and both matter.
The association is intended to give the sector an organised, collective voice. Incubated by Go Cultura Foundation, it will be a standalone organisation with its own members and autonomy. Its purpose is to advocate for the sector and give professionals a structure through which they can help shape the conditions affecting their work.
CreActivo Foundation is being developed as a separate foundation, also incubated by Go Cultura Foundation, with a focus on execution. Its role will be to turn identified needs into practical programmes, partnerships and opportunities. We cannot address every need at once. We can organise the work, establish priorities, negotiate resources and make progress step by step.
Together, these structures reflect the responsibility we are choosing to take. We want the sector to be able to speak for itself and develop the capacity to act. That requires more than enthusiasm. It requires governance, clear responsibilities and accountability for what we undertake.
Government has an important role in this development, and meaningful cooperation remains welcome. But our ability to move forward cannot depend entirely on whether a minister makes the sector a priority. Creative professionals are already working, building businesses and contributing to Aruba. Their needs continue beyond political terms, and so must the effort to address them.
We do not need an external, regional or international organisation to come and decide our direction for us. The people working in Aruba’s Cultural and Creative Industries bring knowledge of this sector that cannot be acquired through a short visit or a series of meetings. We live its realities, work within its limitations and understand the relationships that shape it.
International expertise is welcome when it respects that knowledge, responds to needs we have identified and strengthens our capacity to act. It should help us develop the skills and opportunities we need while leaving lasting knowledge and capability here in Aruba. We are open to learning and collaboration, and we expect to be treated as partners with the authority to shape our own development.
Waiting on government is not our development strategy. We are preparing to work with those willing to contribute, while building the independence needed to maintain direction and continuity.
We work for the community, not for re-election. Our priorities are shaped by the sector’s needs, and our commitment does not expire when a political term ends. We intend to earn trust through the work we do, the results we can demonstrate and our willingness to remain accountable to the people we serve.
The mapping will help us understand where we stand. What follows must demonstrate what we are prepared to do with that understanding. The knowledge contributed through this process matters beyond the pages of the report. It is helping lay the foundation for a sector that can organise itself and take greater ownership of its development.
To the 1,579 believers who chose to take the survey: congratulations, and thank you. You did more than answer questions. You contributed your experience, your knowledge and your voice to a clearer understanding of Aruba’s Cultural and Creative Industries. Without your input, we could not produce a meaningful report. You helped make this work possible, and we intend to honour that contribution through what we do next.
In 2022, we said we would take a different approach. With 1,579 voices helping shape the way forward, we are carrying it through.