if dis neva sooo sad it wud be funny...

**evanovitch** · 09-30-2009, 08:59 PM

dwl dwl dwl

<span style="font-weight: bold">Diaspora committee still not off the ground</span>
Published: Wednesday | September 30, 2009

Jamaicans abroad have been asked to make submissions to be discussed at a parliamentary committee on diaspora affairs.

<span style="font-weight: bold">The committee was appointed in March 2008 and its chairman and members named but since that time no meetings have been held</span>.

When The Gleaner contacted the junior minister for foreign affairs on Monday to confirm his status as chairman of the parliamentary committee, he explained that the Clerk to the Houses of Parliament had written to the head of the Jamaica Diaspora Institute, Professor Neville Ying, requesting submis-sions from a number of groups in the diaspora. "What we did was to send a request out to the UK (United Kingdom) Canada and the United States asking for submis-sions on topics they would like to discuss," he explained.

First sitting

Dr Robinson said a meeting would be held with Professor Ying to review the submissions and select three main topics for the first sitting of the committee.

Commenting on some of the matters that might form the basis of the committee's deliberations, the junior minister for foreign affairs said the dual citizenship debate and representation on behalf of the diaspora in the Senate and or Houses of Parliament would be high on the agenda.

As part of its terms of reference, the parliamentary committee has been mandated to determine a national approach to policy on diaspora matters. It has also been asked to explore constitutional amendments or other policy shifts on parliamentary representation for Jamaicans overseas.

**evanovitch** · 09-30-2009, 11:46 PM

Practical nurses upset at exclusion from overseas employment

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

The Practical Nurses Association of Jamaica has called members of its action committee to an emergency meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

The meeting is to determine what action to take in response to practical nurses being excluded from the Ministry of Labour's overseas employment programme.

The association says the meeting will be held at the National Workers Union Conference Hall at five o'clock.

The Practical Nurses Association says it is the appropriate channel through which representation, placement and selection of nurses should be done and should have been consulted.

It says the Labour Ministry bypassed the Association and this has only served to breed tension between the two.

The Association says its members have been placed on high alert pending the outcome of Wednesday's meeting.

**Dr.Dudd** · 10-01-2009, 12:16 AM

Re: Practical nurses upset at exclusion from overseas employment

Practical nursing in Jamaica is not the same as practical nursing in North America. What they need to do is to sit the foreign boards exam ands once they pass, they will be employed.

But even registered nursing in Jamaica Is not universally accepted due to the fact that they are mostly trained in health institutions, instead of colleges and using hospitals as practicing facilities.

Practical nurses in North America is generally trained to the associates of science levels. which is a college based training.

So it is kind of difficult to place the lives of people that need skilled training in the hands of people trained in substandard facilities.

Until recently the Jamaican government never trained practical nurses.
Neither did it have that work description in the health care system. What it has was nursing assistants,that seem to have been renamed practical nurses.

So the ones being trained is a new project,that has never been done by the government before.

They Will be more qualified than local practical nurses. <div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovich</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Wednesday, 30 September 2009

The Practical Nurses Association of Jamaica has called members of its action committee to an emergency meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

The meeting is to determine what action to take in response to practical nurses being excluded from the Ministry of Labour's overseas employment programme.

The association says the meeting will be held at the National Workers Union Conference Hall at five o'clock.

The Practical Nurses Association says it is the appropriate channel through which representation, placement and selection of nurses should be done and should have been consulted.

It says the Labour Ministry bypassed the Association and this has only served to breed tension between the two.

The Association says its members have been placed on high alert pending the outcome of Wednesday's meeting.

</div></div>

**evanovitch** · 10-01-2009, 12:31 AM

Keeping the diaspora on side

Keeping the diaspora on side

By David Jessop
The Director of the Caribbean Council

In the 1960’s the Caribbean’s Diaspora had a distinctive identity.

It predominantly comprised of migrants who had grown up or been born in the region, understood it well and maintained a close relationship with family and friends at home.

Most planned to return one day, sent back remittances on a regular basis, were employed largely at lower levels of the public sector and resided in a few localities in Britain.

In 2009, this picture and the perceptions that derive from it have largely ceased to hold true.

The Caribbean diaspora has spread to the US, Canada and to many other parts of the world so that a larger part of the Caribbean’s people now live beyond its shores.

Today the third and fourth generations of those who came from the region are for the most part losing their Caribbean cultural identity as aspiration, success and other interests cause their familial homeland to become remote from everyday life.

<span style="font-style: italic">Diaspora strategy</span>

So much so that one of the more challenging questions that the region faces, if it wishes to find ways to harness the political and economic power of it increasingly estranged populations, is how to develop policies and strategies that in the longer term maintain a common sense of identity and any interest in the nations and the region from which grandparents and great grandparents came.

A little over a week ago the Jamaica National Building Society hosted a Diaspora dialogue in London to try to understand better what might drive thinking in the Caribbean community in Britain now; what are the issues of concern; and how on a two-way basis, the Caribbean might in future be better able to relate to its non-resident community.

Although the event was Jamaica specific, little transpired that was significantly different from any discussion that might take place with a similar generational mix of those who have ties with the rest of the region.

The structure of the event was such that it sought to pose various questions to the participants, most of whom had found success in the church, academia, medicine, the trades unions, politics or business.

Interestingly those who said least in the meeting were from the most recent generation; the group aspiring to, or achieving success in the professional sphere.

Their perception was significantly different from those in the first and second generations and is relatively remote from any ties that might bind the region’s future to theirs.

<span style="font-style: italic">Cultural identity</span>

The issues covered ranged from how to address the problems of a huge number underclass of undocumented Caribbean migrants living illegally in the UK, through to whether it was possible to be a Jamaican (or Caribbean citizen) in a globalising economy to what was required to underwrite Caribbean cultural identity.

There were significant exchanges on how in the region, it was Caribbean nationality and culture that created self-belief and identity.

Caribbean citizens, it was noted, grow up surrounded by role models from business, academia, the church, entertainment and politics and have a sense of belonging, community and propriety.

However, the absence of such broad-based influences in Britain and elsewhere was causing many less educated young men in the diaspora to be alienated from society.

One response was that the Caribbean’s own creative and cultural industries had a central role in providing an identity and relationship with the region.

At the meeting there were also interesting discussions on political representation in both Jamaica and the UK.

Is it time for countries like Jamaica to consider a Diaspora Minister?

There was clearly a role for greater political activism in those British constituencies in which the Caribbean diaspora resided, but voter registration needed to be improved.

There was also a role for Jamaica and by extension all governments in the region to consider appointing one or more senators to reflect in their Parliaments the views of their diaspora.

Mixed group

Despite this there was some ambivalence as to whether national diasporas would attenuate and a regional identity emerge.

Today the UK is a much more heterogeneous society than the one migrants first entered.

Education and success are changing the basis on which individuals relate to the nation of their ancestry posing challenges to Caribbean governments that wish to find ways to harness the latent power of the regions broader citizenship in the world.

Problematically many of the same social difficulties evident in the host society are manifest in almost all migrant communities.

That is to say there is a clear and growing divide between those with higher education or achieving through entrepreneurial or creative activity and those who for whatever reason are excluded of have excluded themselves from mainstream society.

For the Caribbean this poses a not well recognised dilemma.

The diaspora is hugely fragmented socially as well as aspirationally.

<span style="font-style: italic">Mobilising</span>

While some regional governments are developing policies that are inclusive of the first and second generations who still see themselves as Caribbean, there is a new requirement for a very different approach to the economically active and aspiring.

In this context there seems so far to have been little thought given to what exactly the region wants from those who still show it loyalty or interest.

Is it economic or philanthropic, is it the ability to mobilise in response to political differences between the region and the country in which the diaspora reside or is it something else much less definable; some kind of cultural loyalty?

Ireland, Israel, Palestine, India and other nations have understood with much greater clarity the value of programmes that find ways to embrace new generations with little or no direct connection to their ancestry.

While in some obvious cases this is driven by strategic need there is no reason why Caribbean governments and companies should not jointly consider best practice and establish small, responsive, properly funded and staffed bodies in Europe and North America with a clear remit to develop programmes that foster long-term ties.

Time is passing: if there is value in having a diaspora, now is the time to act.

Otherwise, within two decades newer generations will come to see the region solely as a location for a nostalgic or puzzling vacation.

<span style="font-style: italic">David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at [email protected]</span>

if dis neva sooo sad it wud be funny...

if dis neva sooo sad it wud be funny...

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

ads