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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/09/Andrew-holness-miss-lou-renaming-gordon-town-square.2JPG-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-8697" /></figure>
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<p>Many Jamaicans love Louise Bennett-Coverley,
from the very young to the young-at-heart. </p>
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<p>But for some, especially for the younger
generations, asking them just what about the titular poetess and cultural icon
they love, and some are a little lost for words.</p>
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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/09/miss-lou-buzz-demo-3.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-7883" /><figcaption>Jamaica's cultural icon, comedienne and poetess Louise Bennett-Coverley (Photo: National Library of Jamaica)</figcaption></figure>
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<p>Fontana Pharmacy is stepping in to fill
that void in 2019, as Jamaica celebrates 100 days of ‘Miss Lou’ across the
country, with its informative storyboard.</p>
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<p>Director of Fontana Pharmacy, Kevin O’Brien Chang, in an interview with <strong>BUZZ</strong>, calls the initiative timely as the 100 days of Miss Lou celebrations continue.</p>
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<p>“Well the reality is everybody loves Miss Lou in Jamaica, but a lot of people don’t know why they love her, especially young people. You can’t blame them, Ring Ding ended in 1980 and time flies; there hasn’t been much education for the youth about Miss Lou,” he began.</p>
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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/09/Miss-Lou-Statue-Inscription-Buzz-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-8908" /><figcaption>Inscription on Miss Lou's statue in Gordon Town, St Andrew (Photo: Dennis Brown) </figcaption></figure>
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<p>“There’s a wonderful statue up at Miss Lou Square but if you go there, you won’t see anything [there] about Miss Lou. So, if you’re thinking, a little girl goes to her parent, ‘Daddy, who is Miss Lou?’. But they need deeper knowledge than ‘Oh, she wrote some poems and made us laugh.’,” O'Brien Chang told <strong>BUZZ</strong>.</p>
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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/09/Miss-Lou-Statue-Gordon-Town-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-8907" /><figcaption>Statue of Miss Lou in Gordon Town Square, St Andrew (Photo: Dennis Brown) </figcaption></figure>
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<p>“She’s the mother of Jamaican culture, so we need to educate people. We are the world’s smallest, youngest cultural superpower, known everywhere – there’s no parallel in today’s world,” he explained further.</p>
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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/09/kevin-obrien-chang-buzz-feature-1024x614.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-8880" /><figcaption>Author and Director of the Fontana Pharmacy franchise, Kevin O'Brien Chang (Photo contributed)</figcaption></figure>
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<h2>'Miss Lou gave a nation self-identity'</h2>
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<p>“Miss Lou taught us to be confident in who we are. Before Miss Lou, we had a pseudo-British culture, we imitated them; we didn’t speak like ourselves, we were afraid to. She made us confidently speak like ourselves, [about] how we feel, in our own language,” O'Brien Chang told <strong>BUZZ</strong>.</p>
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<p>“That’s a massive thing to give a nation self-confidence, [Miss Lou] transformed our self-identity and it wasn’t always like that,” the Fontana Chairman continued.</p>
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<p>“I see the gap; I see that young people love her but don’t know why the do, and so I said for [Miss Lou’s] 100th birthday, let us try and educate the young people about the fullness of Miss Lou," he asserted.</p>
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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/09/Murals-Miss-Lou-Gordon-Town-Buzz-1024x683.jpg" alt="Murals along the wall in Gordon Town Square, St Andrew showcasing cultural icon Miss Lou" class="wp-image-8909" /><figcaption>Murals along the wall in Gordon Town Square, St Andrew showcasing cultural icon Miss Lou (Photo: Dennis Brown)</figcaption></figure>
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<p>“She not just a funny lady who wrote poems. She was a fighter for racial identity,” O’Brien Chang told <strong>BUZZ</strong>, adding that Miss Lou is arguably the greatest single contributor to Jamaican culture.</p>
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<p>To this end, Fontana Pharmacy in partnership with the Ministry of Culture is distributing the Miss Lou storyboard to over 1,700 to every school across Jamaica.</p>
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<figure class="wp-block-image"><img src="https://buzz-caribbean.com/app/uploads/2019/09/miss-lou-storyboard-fontana-buzz-demo.jpg" alt="A digital copy of the Miss Lou storyboard, obtained by BUZZ " class="wp-image-8883" /><figcaption>A digital copy of the Miss Lou storyboard, obtained by BUZZ (Photo contributed)</figcaption></figure>
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<p>The national network of libraries, ministries, as well as embassies and other consulates, are also included in the island-wide roll-out of the Miss Lou storyboards.</p>
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<p>O’Brien Chang told <strong>BUZZ</strong> that the storyboards can also be downloaded for free on the Fontana Pharmacy’s website.</p>
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