Preparations underway for electrifying Mash 2025 celebrations

With preparations already underway, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson Jr is confident in pulling off the country’s largest and most electrifying Mashramani celebration this year following a segment of early preparations.
Officially launched in November 2024, Mashramani 2025 will be observed countrywide under the theme “Expressing our culture and creativity as One Guyana.”
Some of the main events – which will run from February 14-24 – include the Calypso Monarch, Soca Monarch, Dancehall Monarch, Splashramani, Masharama, Chutney Monarch, Republic Flag Raising ceremony, and the highly-anticipated Costume and Float Parade, as well as the Panorama Steel Band Competition.
Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson Jr – whose Ministry handles the planning of the Mash activities – is confident that the early preparations this year will result in great success.
He at the time made these remarks during his end of year conference on Saturday.
According to the Minister, this early step was taken to ensure designers provide their proposals earlier than usual, so they can maximise the level of their creativity and not produce low-tier work in a rush to the final date.
“What we did is sought to get the funding earlier this time and have the designers present their proposals earlier than usual so that they can have longer presentations and preparations. So, this was the first time that has happened.”
According to the Minister, he told them to organise their proposals early as they don’t want them to start preparing close to the Mashramani date.
“We took the funding early. We told them in October to get your proposals, go and meet the Ministry. We certainly did—we wrote to all the Ministries to finalise your design so that they can prepare early. We don’t want them to do this too close to Mashramani.”
Meanwhile, as talks proceeded into the preparations for Mashramani, on the Dancehall Monarch competition, the Minister noted that this newest addition has received great interest since its introduction last year.
“The dancehall submission has the greatest number of submissions even though it’s the newest, and it shows that despite some initial pushback, it was an area that was left untapped for us as a country, and its success is already showing itself. So that will be included in this year’s Mashramani.”
Meanwhile, the Minister also issued a call for more collaboration with the business community and other stakeholders to make Mashramani 2025 bigger and better. (G2)