Caribbean - Coconut Bay

Raised in a poor family, Karl Mason worked hard and has grown into a young, successful lawyer. A smart man on the way up, he’s got political aspirations.

Karl also boasts unbridled ambition and lives dangerously. He represents crooked developers and drug barons, and he likes to “fool around.” His latest conquest is a young secretary named Stacy Bryan. The fact that his long-suffering wife, Louise, is faithful doesn’t stop him. That Stacy will give him a sexually transmitted disease just might.

Drug abuse, spousal abuse, family planning, STD/HIV prevention, environmental degradation, teenage pregnancy — all these social issues and more are covered in Coconut Bay, a PCI-Media Impact collaboration with the RARE Center for Tropical Conservation, an organization dedicated to protecting tropical biodiversity.

Since its debut on August 2001, the program has aired twice a week in the eastern Caribbean islands of Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The program builds on the success of Apwé Plézi (After the Pleasure), a hugely popular radio serial on the air in St. Lucia since 1996 that was also produced by RARE.

“Because this is a multi-island project,” says the project coordinator, Valerie Cornwall, “it forces us to work together to reflect characteristics of each of the islands, since each is slightly different.”

Program Impact

“As we inspire our audience,” says Robert Whyte, director of Coconut Bay, “we ourselves become inspired. A guy on our production team realized that one of the negative characters, Jack Iron, reminded him of a relative. It’s emboldened him to speak up, to encourage the relative to change his behavior. He’s realized that abuse is not O.K.”

Bassanio Nicholas is the actor who plays Jack Iron, a bus driver who drinks and yells and beats his wife and children. Jack doesn’t support his family financially or emotionally. “When people realize I’m the guy playing Jack,” says Mr. Nicholas, “they’re quick to say he needs to be punished. But he’s an accurate representation of a certain type of man in this macho society.”

The voice of actor Bernard E. Wilson is deep, smooth, seductive — perfect to play the lead character of Karl Mason. “I see Karl as a devious character who will do almost anything to have his own way. He always places emphasis on materials things.”

However, there is more to life than material things, asserts Coconut Bay’s main scriptwriter (and artistic director of the Heritage Theater Company), Christopher De Riggs. “These Caribbean islands are small, with fragile ecosystems that need to be protected.”

An example is Levera, an area of Grenada with natural attractions that include a pristine beach with a nesting area, an abundance of marine life, and an incredible flora system. The area is being cut up and sold in lots, and the entire region will suffer irretrievable losses.

“So we must educate people,” says Mr. De Riggs. “For the show we’ve created Percy, a character who champions environmental issues. As a senior member of the Department of Forestry, Percy and a farmer named Rose will have an opportunity to discuss these topics.”

Mr. Whyte, the show’s director, sums up: “We believe Coconut Bay will achieve its objective to create awareness. Ultimately, it will change people’s attitudes and behaviors.”

Rose and Erosion
An Excerpt from Coconut Bay

The radio serial drama chronicles the lives of islanders in a fictional seaside village, and the stories focus on environmental degradation, family planning, teenage pregnancy, and spousal abuse.

In this episode, Percy, senior member of the Department of Forestry, visits his good friend Rose, a farmer, and describes an environmental project on which he is working.

Percy: [The project] is something that The Friends secure funding for.

Rose: The Friends?

Percy: The Friends of The Environment.

Rose: Oh, your crazy partners and them (laughing)…

Percy: Look Rose, you want me to tell you about this or not?

Rose: Go on, I’m listening.

Percy: You know, for some time now people have been talking about how the environment is getting worse.

Rose: That is true.

Percy: Well, The Friends decided to take this thing further than just lip service. We wanted to have an accurate understanding of just how bad things were, so we prepared a project proposal and sent it to a foreign funding agency.

Rose: Did you get the money?

Percy: Hold on, Rose. After a lot of paper work they agreed to fund the project. We are studying the hills around the lake to see how serious the erosion problem is.

Rose: What erosion problem?

Percy: What do you think happens when people cut the wood on the hillside to make charcoals?

Rose: People have to live, Percy.

Percy: And the hills have to live, too. When they cut down all the trees, and expose the hillside to the sun and the rain, everything washes straight down into the lake. And when the lake fills up with mud, what do you think will happen to the fish in the lake?

Rose: I find you’re taking this thing real serious, boy.

Percy: It is serious business, Rose. Take for instance the problem of beach erosion. For donkey’s years people have been moving truckload after truckload of sand from the beaches. Now that the sea starts to come in, everybody is surprised.

Rose: So where do you expect people to get sand from to build their houses?

Percy: It is a matter of control. Everything should have a plan, people shouldn’t be allowed to just do what they want.

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