If Prime?Minister Freundel Stuart displays a soft spot for postal workers and for the Diaspora, the reason is straightforward.
“I myself have had to reflect that you only fully appreciate the value of having people living abroad when you are at home and you are going through very difficult circumstances and you are looking for that postman to come,” he told more than 300 Bajan New Yorkers a week ago in Brooklyn.
“I had a brother who was living in Britain for 39 years and during some of my own darkest days, my anxieties were assuaged, my distresses were alleviated by the sight of that postman coming, not with any dizzying sum of money but, of course, with enough to ensure that I did not lose my sense of balance, that I did not surrender my civility.”
That experience was shared by tens of thousands of people across the island.
And it explained why, according to Stuart, overseas nationals were so “very important to us in Barbados”.
That importance was seen in coin or kind.
According to the United Nations, the World Bank and other international financial institutions which track remittances, Bajans living in foreign countries sent back US$113 million to relatives and friends in 2004 and by 2009, it was estimated at US$600 million during the period.
The “kind” to which Stuart referred ranged from room and board for students and assistance in paying tuition fees for Bajan students in at least 20 major cities in North America or Britain, as well as an array of gifts and services to institutions serving the public in Barbados. Scholarships, professional advice and services and equipment
to health care facilities, schools and neighbourhood organizations add to the picture.
That assistance, Stuart insisted, was an example of Bajans “contributing to the social stability of Barbados”.
Successive Governments have made a determined effort to reach out to overseas nationals.
For example, the introduction of duty-free privileges for household goods imported by “returning nationals” and vehicles in the late 1990s by the Arthur administration. The Thompson Government raised the bar with the late Prime Minister’s frequent presence at social and business gatherings arranged by Bajan organizations.
Just as important was last year’s diaspora consultation in Barbados attended by hundreds of people who exchanged ideas.
“That consultation was very useful,” Marston Gibson, at the time president of the Council of Barbadian Organizations, said shortly after the diaspora meeting.
Now, Stuart said his administration was committed to pursuing the goal of full integration of the diaspora into the country’s daily life.
“You must be in no doubt that the Government . . . is committed to more closely articulating itself with the diaspora, not only in New York but wherever Barbadians can be found,” he said.
“This is not a one-off exercise. It is a programme we intend to pursue and to ensure that it assumes a particular shape that makes any decisions that are going to be taken predictable and planned, so that the relationship between Barbadians abroad and Barbadians at home can be strengthened, fine-tuned.”
The Prime Minister gave that assurance at an annual “cocktail sip” organized by the Friends of Barbados (DLP) Association held at Nazareth School Auditorium in Brooklyn’s East Flatbush.
Barbados’ Consul General in New York, Lennox Price who headed the organization for several years, spoke before Stuart. He said Barbados “had been severely impacted by the global economic crisis” and urged Bajans to step up their assistance to their country.
“Barbados needs you,” he said.
And the nationals could help, he explained, by encouraging their friends, neighbours and work colleagues to spend their vacations in the destination, using a programme launched by the Barbados Tourism Authority.
The Foundation School Alumni Association presented the Prime Minister, a graduate of the school, with a gift.
Several former students, including Honora Smith-Curry, the association’s president, Marston Gibson, Janice Cadogan, “Bobby” Blackett and Helen Walker greeted Stuart.
Among those at the function were Barbados’ Ambassador to the United Nations, Joe Goddard, Canon Percy Brathwaite, of the Episcopal Church; Bill Best, chairman of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Appeals, Reuben Best, who delivered the invocation, and Heather Stuart, president of the Friends of Barbados.
