Mr. Owen ‘Blakka’ Ellis is an educator, writer, motivational speaker, and a performing artist with a career spanning three decades on both stage and screen. Founder/director of Ellis International – a successful entertainment production and Arts Management agency, he has led several community-based arts-related projects in Canada and Jamaica and has worked throughout the Caribbean and in Africa facilitating workshops and training seminars around diverse topics related to arts and entertainment, masculinity, sexuality, and gender-based violence. He is the author of two books of poetry, co-author of the parenting handbook ‘Men & Their Families’, and wrote a commentary column in the STAR for fourteen years. Ellis studied Theatre Arts and Drama Education at the Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts, Social Work at the University of the West Indies, and earned a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies majoring in Gender, Culture and Environments, from York University in Canada.

Miss Renee Kitson is a Lecturer in the School of Arts Management and Humanities. She presently lecturers the following courses: Introduction to Marketing, Introduction to Practice of Visual and Performing Arts, Project Management, Management of Resources, One Creative Yard, Technical Writing and Self, Ethics and Creativity. She is an alumnus of Edna Manley College School of Visual and Performing Arts. There she completed a BFA in Visual Communication. Through her career, she has gained valuable knowledge in the design and marketing industry of Jamaica. She is also a graduate of Birmingham City University where she attained a Master of Art in Arts and Project Management. Her master’s study propelled her to research on creative based social enterprises and creative entrepreneurship within the urban spaces of Birmingham, UK. She now hopes to aid the Jamaican art world through engaging in and facilitating community art initiatives.