ST GEORGE’S, Grenada, April 15, 2010 – Grenada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Peter David said that the Preparatory Conference for the Diaspora Dialogue scheduled for Grenada in August will chart the way for engaging Grenadians who are residing abroad.
The Office of Diaspora Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has organised a planning conference that will lead into a Founding Conference next year and a major Homecoming in 2012.
The Minister said that the Preparatory Conference will offer an opportunity to discuss the role of the Diaspora in building partnerships between the Government, other agencies and the Diaspora communities.
Mr. David said that Grenadians must recognise the importance of our nationals abroad to our economic development and try to find an organic way to integrate them into that process.
“Just as we are doing now with trying to utilise that resource in our maritime space, we need to find a way to utilise that resource called Grenadians in the Diaspora,” the Minister said in an interview with WEE FM Radio morning host Anthony “Jericho” Greenidge on Thursday.
He said that Grenadians in the Diaspora play a significant part already by way of remittances and other forms of assistance to the country.
“We want to engage them in a more organic way. We want to have a two-way arrangement where they can see themselves as integrally involved in Grenada and Grenadians can recognise their role and the role that the Diaspora plays,” Mr. David said.
A steering committee, headed by Minister Counsellor Michael Mitchell and includes Consul General Derrick James and Press Officer Michael Bascombe, has been meeting to coordinate the various activities for the Preparatory Conference.
Meetings were held in Washington, D.C. and New York in March and a teleconference was held last weekend with the Grenada Atlanta Association.
Members of the steering committee will also be meeting with nationals in Miami on Sunday. The Minister is also expected to meet with nationals in Trinidad and Tobago, London, Toronto and Montreal in the coming weeks.
“We are going to be coordinating with Grenadians in London, New York, Toronto, Montreal, Atlanta, wherever they are and we are going to have a conference in August where we are going to be preparing for a major Founding Diaspora Conference in August, 2011 and then in 2012 for what we are calling a Homecoming which is a major celebration of Grenada,” the Foreign Minister said.
The conference, to be held at the Grenada Boys’ Secondary School (GBSS), is hoping to gather about 150 individuals and representatives from Grenadian organisations in the Diaspora.
“We are going to be sitting with representatives of organisations, hopefully we are looking for about 150 and we will sit to decide how to utilise these resources. While we (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) have some ideas of what can be done we hope to involve the Diaspora themselves in developing that mechanism”.
He said that more dialogue is needed between Grenadians on the mainland and in the Diaspora and is hoping that through this year’s conference, the Founding Conference (2011) and the Homecoming (2012) a mechanism will be developed.
The Grenadian Minister said that the Foreign Ministry is inviting Grenadians, not only as individuals but as organisations, to participate in the conference to discuss what they believe is the best way forward for integrating Grenadians in the Diaspora.
“This is about reaching out to all Grenadians despite whatever their political orientation to be nationalistic in this one instance to make sure that we can develop Grenada.
And we hope, not to just have a conference sitting in a hotel room or the national stadium conference centre, but to have the Diaspora going through all of our communities,” he said.
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