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It sounded like a great idea. The kind of thing that should be done every year.
The foreign ministry and the OECS ambassador in particular were assigned to target St Lucians in the diaspora and woo them with an event called Homecoming.
The idea was like a staycation for St Lucians who live outside of St Lucia. Why should the thousands and thousands of St Lucians who live abroad spend their vacation dollars in South Florida or New York when St Lucia offers them a more intimate, colourful, personal experience than anything they could get anywhere else on the planet, right?
And so, Homecoming was dreamed up. A festival by homebound St Lucians, for international St Lucians, held in St Lucia. Even if it didn’t work, how much harm could it do, right?
It was nostalgia, tourism, networking, investment promotion all rolled into one.
“It is envisaged that this exercise will see investment in communities and grass roots groups that major investors do not target,” a release from the prime minister’s office hoped.
It was scheduled during the low point of the tourism season, so that it would fill empty guest rooms while offering the St Lucians out there a great value. While they were here, the satellites of tourism—everything from restaurants to real estate—would have a shot at saving the summer from total financial meltdown. The government even had one of the region’s financial firms—CMMB—shopping up to $35 million in government bonds to the participants of Homecoming.
It was a great idea. It’s a wonder no one ever thought of it before.
Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong did.
And why shouldn’t it? Why should Homecoming be any different from anything else at home? It was yet another great idea badly executed. Or rather, executed St Lucia-style. Anyone remember the first Jazz Festival? Or the first Jounen Kweyol? How about the ill-fated Country Music Festival, which was thought to be a sure-fire hit? Or even this year’s Carnival, which was destined to be a shadow of Carnivals gone by from the start?
At the opening ceremony for the long awaited Homecoming event at Beausejour Stadium, government officials made light of the shortcomings of Homecoming, eliciting laughter from the frustrated participants. Prime Minister Stephenson King went through the trials of making Homecoming a reality, from its conception two years or more ago to today. And OECS Ambassador Dr June Soomer told tales of the trials of actually putting together the event, with all the failures of service providers, the lateness of registrants and the other hiccups and downright stumbling blocks.
By the Sunday night before the opening, the shortcomings of Homecoming were already shining through. Events were oversubscribed and patrons were mad at having come such a long way only to not be accommodated on a vacation at home!
The government had lots of reasons for failure.
The economy of the world had bottomed out, not to mention the economy of the island. The service providers missed their deadlines, frustrating the efforts of organizers to meet their own targets. The costs changed, the plans changed, some things were scrapped. Meanwhile, the homecomers were missing their own deadlines, throwing yet another spanner in the works. They failed to understand the importance of registering. Organizers had yet another problem on their hands.
“Without a idea of how many people were coming, it was hard to plan events for the number of people who would actually show up,” OECS Ambassador June Soomer said.
On paper, Homecoming was a failure before it even started. Organizers hoped about a thousand St Lucians would participate. The registration files showed less than 350. Organizers made the mistake of preparing events for about 350 people.
“Then came the rush,” Soomer said at the official opening on Monday morning at Beausejour Cricket Stadium. Apparently, lots of diasporan St Lucians were coming—they just didn’t bother to inform the foreign ministry that they expected to get access to all the events, just the same as those who registered. Now it’s hard to tell exactly how much of a bomb Homecoming is because events built for its failure are now overwhelmed by the number of people who are already in the island to take part.
In reality, although Homecoming failed to meets its mark, it has already become a victim of its own lowered expectations for success. At one early event, the ambassador confessed that there was some acrimony over the lack of adequate seating. At the opening ceremony, participants were reminded that they were the ones who registered late—or didn’t register at all.
On Monday morning, while the opening ceremony was taking place, craft vendors, finance firms and food and drinks stands were still setting up. The scheduled cricket match started on time, but no one was there to see it because nothing else started on time. By Tuesday, things started shaping up a little more, but the hope of raising millions in bonds was evaporating. One young economist with a well known firm commented that, “Even though they have more people than they registered, they still don’t have as many as we need for us to be able to increase the possibility of selling more of these bonds.”
The St Lucian diaspora, like the rest of the West Indian diaspora, is a set of industrious communities, mostly in North America and Europe, fairly well educated, most of them verging on if not living in the middle class.
The government hopes to harness their capital and skills in national economic and social development efforts. Homecoming participants are attending seminars and conferences at the Beausejour Stadium all week long. Lunchtime seminars are being made by financial institutions like National Development Corporation, CMMB, ECFH, FICS, RBTT, Forst National, SLDB and the Caribbean Association of Indigenous Banks.
In spite of the disorganization that leads to overcrowding at some events, organizers still hope that St Lucians will join them at Beausejour for lunch on weekdays and join in the discussion about the partnerships they hope to form with St Lucians from all the rest of the world.
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great idea ……bad excecution…………next time will be better……..great example because, its not every one who has a great idea who has the ability to excecute
Great idea. As we all grow and learn, I hope that the event is better executed next time. Also, we must admit that persons (invitees) never seem to follow instructions.
I do not believe that!! Is this for real? “The government even had one of the region’s financial firms—CMMB—shopping up to $35 million in government bonds to the participants of Homecoming.”…Meanwhile 75 bright, intelligent young people are about to be denied only 30% of the tuition to study degrees such as engineering, physic, information technology, etc at the Illinois Institute of Technology IIT.
Then, another 1 million dollars were given to carnival, so that people could carry on obnoxiously - driking and driving, displaying all kinds of lewd conducts, distroying private properties without a care, etc. etc…
The audacity of this present govenment knows no bound!! And to even spell it out loud…
Lord God, what a group!!…These are our leaders!! They sure has their priorities right!!
Why are we soo dependent on the government to provide. If 70% is already being provided, why can’t the students seek to finance the remaining 30% instead of waiting on the government. Such a opportunity should be embraced; and committments need to be made. There are still student loans out there. Some of us have and still go that route; financing 100% of our studies via student loans. We need to take the initiative to better our future; we owe it to our selves. Impossibility is nothing…
I do agree that the government should invest much more in its youth/people in the arena of education, health and sports. However we cannot wait for that moment. We should each take that first step…Laborian
Poor Jab King and Soomer! We all knew this thing was hyped. It never really reach the the vast majority of St Lucians living abraod. The only thing is that this government still don’t understand is that the diaspora is not the few people who make up clubs and organisations abroad. It’s a rude awakening for them. Wait till elections time come and they bank on St Lucians in the diaspora to come down to St Lucia to campaign and vote for flambeau. That eh happening!
Homecoming as a concept was confusing and riddle with poor planning and even less execution and appropriate communication. An event as such should be executed by the Foreign Ministry and not the Prime Ministers office and I can clearly see where the confusion originates. The head of such a Committee should be the PS in the Foreign Ministry and its missions co-ordinate this events long in advance. After all it is the responsibility of the Ministry to communicate and look after the diaspora. What about the returning nationals policy that is fraught with problems and poor vision and no strong guiding policy? As a recently returned Saint Lucian I clearly can attest to this. I have no reason to remain here and this homecoming proves this once again. This was a horrible shame and I think a waste of already strapped resources.
Home-coming!! Why didnt they all contributed a small amout towards the betterment or improvement of our social status here.
“The government…shopping up to $35 million in government bonds to the participants of Homecoming.”…isnt hat downright ridiculous and stupid, stupid, stupid…yet, government cannot get or reufuse or lapsing on the 30% (the remaining 70% is being provided by the IIT) to facilitate the scholarships of 75 young, ambitious, intelligent St.Lucians to study at the Illinois Institute of Techonology -IIT.
Would not the present government prefer to provide the technological know-how to these young ppl (where, upon attaining these knowledge and know how, it could be plough back into the economy), rather than facilitate such non-sense and fabfare?
What was the end results of this home-coming? What did St Lucia achieve from this, while the tax payers had to, according to the government statement, “The government even had one of the region’s financial firms—CMMB—shopping up to $35 million in government bonds to the participants of Homecoming”…so everyone came down, rub shouders, drank and be merry, tried to be a big shot (with the assistance of government) while the poor tax payers were left with the shorter end of the stick!!
THIS HOME COMING MADE NO SENSE AT ALL LACK OF PLANNING ETC ETC RUBBISH
It sounded like a great idea, but I didn’t know about it until it was too late.
Maybe it would have been a good idea to plaster it on the first page of the Newspaper, or better sitll put an add somewhere so that folks in the US like myself would see it. My sister never even mentioned it to me. I guess she didn’t know of it. Let’s try again next year, I would most definitely take part.
The concept was a good idea and remains a good idea.Lets do it every 5yrs or even 10yrs.
Talk about people not registering on time. I registered and replied to the email on the gov’t website but still did not get any feedback about the activities. I attended the food fair but never got any official invitation to any other function.
For many St.Lucians living away this is a good idea. ( I live in Vienna, Austria) Let’s hope that if something like this is done in the future it will be more successful.
All we do is complain. Rome was not built in a day. This is progress!
I REALLY ENJOYED THE CHARITY CONCERT.IT WAS THE BOMB
It is really strange that the government has an entity such as the SLTB which has so much expertise in event planning and yet they had the prime minister’s office organising an type of event which they had no experience with. I’m not sure what they were thinking …maybe its they obsession with controlling everything… The funny thing is that the SLTB’s London office is in teh same building as the St. Lucia High Commission so they could have easily collaborated on this.
They should have also ahd a standing procedure for late registrations. if you have 350 registered….more always turn up. Anyone who has experience in event planning knows this…you have to plan for more…always better to under prepare than over prepare.
oops sory over prepare than under prepare
‘Homecoming’ would have appealed to a number of people if coming back to Saint Lucia actually felt like home. Time and time again the hostility felt by returnees and / or their descendants from their own is becoming common knowlege and reported back to family and friends in the UK, Canada and the US who are put off from visiting.
From setting foot on the island at the airport immigration officials look on you with disdain / scutiny. On learning that you are not staying at a posh hotel you are then questioned as to the contents of your suitcase, whose it for etc, etc, while Europeans glide through without no problem what -so-ever. During your stay upon hearing your accent, you’re over charged for goods or kweyol used to speak about you, assuming you don’t understand and then amazed when you do.
How humiliating and then they plan a ‘Homecoming’!
The racism that Lucians have experienced in the UK, Canada and US manifest in the prejudice demonstrated here, leaving one feeling that the choice to return was a bad one.
The problems of this country is not the fault of those who return. If the government had hoped for a Homecoming success, then first clean up their act here, plough money into the Lucians who cannot go anywhere, the young, the old etc and into the country; can they not see how transparent they are? The pseudo- intellectuals who blind others here but not those who know better or outside of the island have truly made a mockery of this country. Keeping it in the dark ages so that only a few profit, but not enough for others to want to come back.
Returnees/descendants have worked hard and yes unfortunately some have come back with an air of superiority, but there are others who haven’t.
Saint Lucia must be seen as a better place or there will be no use in having any more Homecomings, instead only mass exits with the only ones coming are isolationists intent in creating their own paradise surrounded by walls and tight secuirty!
Could not have said it better myself!! Insightfull comment….
In my humble opinion, homecomming is indeed conceptually sound and I commend the Prime Minister and all parties concerned for their effort in making it a reality. I agree that implementation could have been more effective and the immediate results more tangable. However, we need to look at the glass as half full, we need to conduct a post mortem to identify what was done well and done not so well, we need to establish an action plan to address and correct these variables. We have two years to do so untill the next homecoming.
As one of the St. Lucians living in Canada who came home, I left St. Lucia with new vigor and pride that we as a nation, have not only demonstrated our excellence in education world wide, but will continue to do so with our culture, our music, our relationships with each other, our spirtual fundations, our drive to seek and find ways to engage and mobilize our younger generation and most importantly our continued motivation for the betterment of the country. This I passionately believe, based on my experience with homecoming 2010.
So congratulations to the Government of St. Lucia, the organizers, overseas associations and resident St. Lucians, for seeking and establishing a blue print to include the human, financial and other resources of St. Lucians residing overseas. With time, this can only translate into a better future for our beloved homeland - St. Lucia! As Marco indicated earlier “Rome was not built in a day”.
Finally, I call on the nay sayers, to reconsider your negative comments and look for ways to be part of the solution. I call on members of the politcal spectrum to demonstrate your support by engaging in this initiative to make it more effective and I call on all St. Lucians (overseas and local), to be reminded that the power is in our hands as valued custodians in shaping the future of our beautiful Island St. Lucia!
Well said!:)