The spirit of giving permeated the air at the Saint Lucia Hospitality and Tourism Association (SLHTA) on Monday, December 19, 2022 as the Association, through the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) disbursed grants and donations totalling over EC $250,000 to various organisations. The initiatives, aimed at creating opportunities for the youth and lending a helping hand to the less fortunate, were unveiled during a press conference at the Alfiona Plaza, Rodney Heights, Gros Islet.
An EC $132,000 grant to Landmark Events will provide Saint Lucians with training and development opportunities in the Orange Economy. The company operates Warehouse 11 , a 4,900 square foot facility in Vide Boutielle, Castries which seeks to serve as a ‘community space for creative interaction between artists and audiences, performers and producers, and masters and emerging talent, to simultaneously improve access, affordability and opportunity for skills transfer and development.’ The TEF is committed to providing opportunities in non-traditional areas to harness the talents of our people, increase self worth and identity and generate employment.
“We are very grateful and excited to finally be agreeing with the TEF on the terms and conditions of their support to this very important imitative,” said Managing Director of Landmark Events Dr. Adrian Augier. “The idea is that we’re providing a space where human development can happen…You bring masters and novices, and young people and older people together and hopefully in that space we’ll be able to change a few lives.”
The second grant is to the St. Lucia Divers Association (Anbaglo). Valued at EC $61,355.50, it will open doors for the youth in the Blue Economy. President of Anbaglo Ms. Eget Martyr noted that one of her Association’s objectives is to enable the environment for non-exploitive, scuba diving experiences. She explained that providing the highest available standards of training to citizens is essential to execute this activity safely, professionally and in harmony with other users of the natural environment.
However a worrying trend has been observed: “We have recognised a decrease in the amount of diving professionals on island… There are lots of opportunities which are available here and abroad and we find that increasingly, our pool of diving professionals is getting less and less. So given that current situation, we have decided to step up our training programmes and one of the initiatives was to look at persons who are currently unemployed, as well as persons who are currently in the industry but have not attained the professional level that is required to function more effectively.”
The grant will facilitate the training of Saint Lucians to Divemaster competency with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors— the world’s leading scuba diving training organisation. Diving, Martyr said, is a much sought after profession. “Not just in the hospitality industry but also commercially, and there are immense opportunities to be derived as a professional diver. So we look forward to expanding those opportunities for our citizens; not just to work for somebody else but also to empower them to become entrepreneurs within the industry!
“I would like to say thanks to the SLHTA, through the TEF for giving us this support. We are very happy and we are looking forward to making the initiative a huge success,” she said.
This year the SLHTA TEF is also continuing its annual Xmas Hamper/ Food Voucher drive in a big way: EC $90,000 worth of vouchers will be distributed islandwide to assist families in need. The food vouchers will be distributed by the SLHTA TEF team alongside community groups throughout the month of December. At Monday’s press conference, five organisations received a supply:
-Disabled Musicians ($7,500)
-Rotary Club of Saint Luci($3,000)
-Lions Club of Gros Islet ($3,000)
-Alexander Family Foundation ($3,000)
-Dunnottar School ($3,000)
Chairman of the TEF Winston Anderson reaffirmed the Fund’s commitment to ensuring the sustainable development of the nation. “I am just privileged and honored to be given the opportunity to work with the Trustees, our CEO and President, and all the contributors of the TEF. Together, everyone is committed to making a change; to impacting the lives of not just folks in the hospitality industry but Saint Lucia on a whole. Over the past five years the TEF has disbursed over $2.2 million of financing in support of various programmes and we look forward to bringing about even more meaningful change in 2023.”
The SLHTA and TEF wish all Saint Lucians Season’s Greetings and a bright and prosperous New Year!
NEUVA:
DARK SHADOWS.
It came upon a midnight clear, that Christmas feeling, I recalled that magical month of December growing up as a little boy in the parish of Micoud, oh Micoud you who have kept the seat of power since the ruling of John Compton that land pirate, not much good came out of him, but he never begs to disgrace his homeland, he did little for the people who place him in power, and after he came worse scavengers, Micoud was left in the stone ages, left for ruins, a depilated slaughterhouse and the stinking drain that bouquet the air inside the village, say three cheers to the bastards that use my people good generosity and blind faith.
With a penny in my pocket, I waited anxiously to bum a ride to the neighboring Desruisseaux, bazaar, and festival, a penny could go a long way, the people were alive with gallantry and fun. Who would have thought a decade later St. Lucia my St. Lucia would become a habitual beggar, its leader’s great men like my grand uncle M. Lewis rule this Island with distinct and benevolence, using the God-given resources given to us, indeed it was The Land The People The Light, we made do.
Then came the vultures, circling and swopping down to have a feast, they beg for money to build a hospital then stole it, they beg for money to build roads, then stole it, they beg for money to build the airport, then stole it, yes those modern-day beggars eventually sold your beloved country to foreigners for a bone, the foreigners use their intercalated know how to feed their greed and sit back and watch them slowly decay.
Now the dark clouds are gathering above you St. Lucia and no one to shelter you from the storm, your leaders have shown the scavengers how to steal by their actions, they talk in the daytime and plunder in the night oh what shame they have brought to your shores if you could only find one person who says the truth from either group of pirates who rule over you then maybe you could survive for another year.
Lies and malice are at the forefront of the agenda, they have perfected the lying technic, because they don’t have anyone to be accountable for their devious plunder, given a choice I would have them all thrown out and seek a just man or woman to save fair Helen.
It seems to run in their blood the lies and the cheating which they do in many different forms, citizenship was the lowest blow to you my people, that brought in all the rats from a sinking ship to your house, and now you are infested with all kinds of malicious rejects who is now strong enough to topple your little island since citizen was their way of profiting only to embezzle the funds they have no vision or knowledge nor do they want too.
You now live among a collective of strangers who will soon run you out of your homeland, they have started placing their leaders in a key position, their people has built their own little nest like China Town, and its Triad other scorpions will now dig in to form a vicious circle.
It is not as if they meant well to our once peace-loving people of two dominating people the gina and the coolie, the have and the have not, it has always been that way everyone knew their place and life was in abundant, soon you will ask yourself where are my native people now.
And after the feast was all done we bum a ride back to our little village to enjoy our pig stew, yellow yam, and dasheen, a little beef stew flinging our doors wide open to the sounds of tum ba, and people making merry it’s our traditional Christmas.
Alas, greed has overpowered the rulers, no more brotherhood, all that is left is misery, shootings, killings, chopping, stealing, and foul play. I became a victim to the cowardly way of life that some have already adopted, I brought money into the country to the sum of $250.000 built a house to live among my people, shared my resources contracted builders, masonry, carpenters, electrician, employed them to build my dream home, and they did. Before the builder finished the home had broken into not one, not twice but three times, and all that was in there was ravaged and stolen, poverty has become a sickness to some and the answer is to plunder their neighbors, smiling at you in the day time and stealing from you in the night.
I would rather have given all that I have free to the needy if ask, my heart has been broken by what my creole people have become, someone would steal a cow or a sheep even a foul, but seldom you would hear someone break into a home disgusting shame.
Even with all this tribulation the love for my people run deep, I pray that a solution will materialize and the wild ravenous way of my people cease, but that is wishful thinking, the need to have and the need for more has overpowered their little brains and the arrow has left the quiver.