The Jamaican Diaspora USA Conference 2009: The Topics

The Jamaican Diaspora in the USA recently held its inaugural
conference in Fort Lauderdale from October 2 to 4. As the Future
Leaders Representative for the USA, I attended and was pleased to see
over 200 delegates from all over the USA, including a sizable
contingent under the age of 35. The invited guests and speakers
included Ambassador H.E. Anthony Johnson, Professor Neville Ying of
the Jamaica Diaspora Institute, Senator The Hon. Dr. Ronald Robinson,
Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign
Trade, Hon Andrew Holness, Minister of Education and the respective
Consuls General for New York, Miami and Chicago.

The purpose of the conference was the effective mobilisation of the
Jamaican Diaspora in the USA and updates on Jamaica. Six workshops in
total were held: Community Organizing, Marketing of Jamaican Diaspora
Brand/Message, Future Leaders Engagement, Education, Investment &
Trade and Health. All were well attended and concrete action plans
were formulated and reported on at the end of the conference.

Presentations were also made on ‘Global Models: Lessons in Engagement
& Governance”, “Jamaica Diaspora USA: Governance Structure”,
“Collaboration on Disaster Preparedness” and “Development of a Talent
Network/Database”. All of these presentations served to educate the
delegates but the presentation of Minister Holness on the state of
education in Jamaica captured my attention the most.

He indicated that some 10,000 young Jamaicans are not in school
because there are no spaces for them. His presentation drove home the
fact that while many Jamaicans complain about children not being in
school and want enforcement of truancy laws already on the books, the
school system itself cannot accommodate every student that should be
in school. Minister Holness suggested that members of the Jamaican
Diaspora could play a significant role by each donating a small amount
of money towards a school construction fund and that alone would allow
him to provide new spaces. He also indicated that Jamaica is need of
some 150,000 spaces to be truly ready and that roughly translates into
15 new schools.

I will be reporting on each of the workshops in coming posts next week.