IF YOU CALL A FRIEND in North America or London and no one answers the telephone, there is a good chance he or she is either in Barbados or heading here.
That’s because hundreds of Bajans who live in London, New York, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Houston or any of the dozens of cities, towns and suburbs in the United States, Britain and Canada where Barbadians have established strong communities, are gathering in their birthplace for the second Network Conference organized by Government.
The goal: to bring together members of the diaspora to consider how they can play an even greater role in their homeland’s further development. The conference opens on Tuesday and ends Thursday with a focus on the nation’s youth.
“The conference and the diaspora are very important,” says Colin Mayers, Barbados’ Consul General in Miami. “We have been putting quite a lot of emphasis on the diaspora because the Government back home has urged the consular and diplomatic offices to reach out to the Barbadians who live abroad.
“Because of their importance, especially during these times with the current economic climate, they represent quite a bit to Barbados when it comes to remittances and their efforts to encourage people to visit Barbados as tourists.”
John Beale, Barbados’ Ambassador to Washington who is already in the country, agreed.
“The diaspora is part of our mandate,” he said.
Mayers, who is Consul General to the South, traces Government’s heightened interest in the diaspora to an initiative launched by the late David Thompson after he became Prime Minister in 2008.
“He encouraged us to pay much greater attention to the diaspora and he attended many of its meetings and conferences in different parts of the United States and Canada,” Mayers said.
“The current Prime Minister, Mr Freundel Stuart, has embraced it as well.”
Actually, the focus on the diaspora began in earnest during the Owen Arthur administration with the introduction of duty-free concessions on personal property, including automobiles that returning nationals import into Barbados when they are resettling in the country.
Unfortunately, the naked abuse of it by some, not all Bajans when it came to the importation of cars forced a Government cut-back on some of the privileges.
Mayers, whose office in Florida covers 11 southern states, including Alabama, Kentucky, South and North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, said that they employ diverse strategies to involve Bajans and meet their needs – apart, of course, from the traditional activities of a consulate general, such as issuing passports.
“In some of the states we have honorary consuls in Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas who assist us in our work,” he explained.
“We work with the Barbados associations. In Florida, the state with the largest number of Bajan groups, we have to be constantly on the go, relating to the Barbadians. We go out to their functions and to what they call a ‘taste of Barbados’. We go out to town hall meetings, especially in the major cities of Florida and Georgia and Texas.”
Like New York where Lennox Price serves as Consul General, the Barbados Government offices in Florida – the Consulate General, Tourism Authority and Invest Barbados, joined by the Liaison Service – “function as a team” promoting Barbados as a tourist destination, as a manufacturer of indigenous products, and as a source of hard workers for the hospitality industry and other employers in the United States.
“We invite senior representatives of the credit unions, officers from Customs and Immigration and the legal profession in Barbados to join us and provide information to Barbadians,” Mayers explained.
“That information is important for those who are planning to return home, invest in Barbados, or are interested in encouraging people to visit Barbados for their vacations.”
The credit unions, he added, have seen the results of their marketing efforts in the United States as several Bajans in the south have joined the non-bank financial institutions. Remittances to Barbados from the diaspora since the turn of the century, according to the World Bank and the United Nations, have amounted to at least US$1 billion.
A key item on the Network Conference’s agenda is a career forum organized by the Young Barbadian Professional Society. It will give the youth a chance to interact with successful bankers, attorneys and other professionals and executives in a range of fields. It will be held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Wednesday afternoon.
“We are looking forward to an exchange of ideas with young people so they can think of careers they can pursue, not only in Barbados but outside of our country,” said YBPS president Renee Cutting.
