 The Government Information Service presents highlights of activities to mark St. Lucia's 8th Independence Anniversary. As part of this year's 8th Independence Anniversary celebrations, a home economics exhibition was held at the Ave Maria School and was formally declared open by Trade and Industry Minister Hon. William George Mallett. I am very pleased that I have the opportunity to meet some of you, can't be all of you, and to tell you how impressed I am with what I have seen here, put out by your friends in the school, your students, your boys and girls, or rather, yes, it's coming from both boys and girls. What we see here are exhibits contributed by children at all the schools in the Casteries base, not just the Ave Maria School where we are now. These are contributions made by all the schools in the Casteries base and extending as far as the Hesse School and Bexon and up in the North, the Comprehensive School and so on. And I have been very impressed with this just as I am sure you have been. Those I am speaking to now are children who are in the second and third standard in third classes, but you will be moving into classes where by September or so you will begin yourselves to be doing some work in home economics. The exhibits here are things that you can make and you will make when the time comes. I have seen a number of things that are produced and are on exhibition here, products that could find a market, could be sold here in St. Lucia without a problem. I want to congratulate you and through Ms. Henry here to congratulate all the children who have made contributions to this exhibition. What we are celebrating, this is part of the activities for Independence Day, the anniversary of Independence, that's on the 22nd of this month. Now what does independence mean to us? The idea for this behind this exhibition is to get us to appreciate that being independent is not just to say we sing a national anthem or we put up a flag which is the St. Lucia flag and we say we are independent, it must mean more to us than that. In the past we were directed by those who controlled this country. The government was not a government that was in total control of the business of St. Lucia. That was changed with independence, but that means that we are taking on new responsibilities. And you must take on these new responsibilities because you are the men and women of tomorrow. Those who will be taking, probably standing in the position in which I am standing here, a few years from now, some of you will be standing right here, some of you will be controlling the destiny of this country, some of you will be deciding where this country goes and how it should go, therefore you must begin even now to take an interest in your country and to be proud of your country. And the purpose of this exhibition is to get you to appreciate that independence means taking on certain responsibilities. And one of those is shown in the exhibits that have been put forward here, the exhibits that we have seen. I am sure that we can do much better than this, not just at this moment, but after we leave school. It should be possible for us to continue to make these things and not only to have them on exhibits, but to be able to offer them to the stores, to be able to offer them to the shops. What I am told speaking to some of the teachers this morning is that after you leave schools, although you have done so well whilst you are at school with these exhibits, whether it is in things like cookies, in cakes, in fudge, in namah, some little joinery work I see, some craft, some handicraft, some garments that you make, dresses and so on, all wonderful. But it should be possible when you leave school to continue doing this and to earn a living from doing it, because we are importing a lot of things. Some of the cookies that you eat here are imported, you get them in boxes in the supermarkets. They are imported here. Why? Because it is not available locally. But you can make them. Because in the exhibition here we see that it is possible to make them. Some of the garments that we see on exhibit here could be made and put into the stores manual. There are some in the stores right now, but more of them can be placed there because we are still importing garments. We are still importing a lot of the handicraft that I see on display here. So what I would like to ask you is that you not only offer these products for exhibit on occasions like this, but you try, after you have done this, because you are doing it in an excellent way. I am very proud of the standard and quality of the things that I see on exhibition here. What you should try is after you leave school to continue to produce those things commercially. Only being produced and not just taking a set and putting it in the oven and that is it, but putting sets in the oven one after the other so that you can supply the outlets. What we want to be, in fact I see, there is a sign that says home economics is self-reliance. We must be able to rely on ourselves to eat the things that we grow, to produce the things that we eat, to produce the things that we wear, to produce the things that we use. We must more and more begin to do this. And if there is one good thing that might come out of this exhibition is an undertaking by young people like you to ensure that you will continue to make a contribution to the development of the country and that you will do this now, tomorrow, next year and years after you leave school you will continue to make that contribution because Saint Lucia is dependent on us who are the people, on us who are the inhabitants. The reason for your training, the reason for your being in school today is to make sure that when you grow up you will be sufficiently intelligent, sufficiently educated, sufficiently motivated that you can take an active part in controlling the country, in running the country to ensure that we grow from strength to strength. I would like to feel that I have that assurance and looking at your faces I can see you are people who are really committed, who are really dedicated. I would like a few years from now to see many of you in leading positions in Saint Lucia and continuing to do the good work that some of us now and some of us before have started and are doing. Thank you very much. Following the opening of the exhibition, it was over to the Mindo Phillip Park where an ecumenical service was held on the theme, Corporation for National Survival. It was attended by His Excellencies, the Governor General and Lady Lewis, Prime Minister and Mrs. John Compton. The welcome greetings was given by Archdeacon Cannon Randolph Evelyn. We warmly welcome you to this service to mark the eighth anniversary of independence. We trust that this service will not only be a blessing to us who are here but to our nation as a whole. This nation is under God. He is the head and all who labor together for the people of God work under God and therefore it is fitting that we should gather here to thank God for the blessings during the past eight years and even beyond that before we became an independent nation and to ask His blessings on this entire nation and especially upon those on whom the destiny of this nation will rest the youth. We're going to ask His pardon for our past mistakes and we're going to own that His wisdom is that on which alone we can depend. We're going to ask Him to temper on own human judgments and on our own human wisdom by His divine wisdom so that whatever we do as a people will be to His honor and glory and to the good welfare of all everyone in this nation. We welcome you as we pray together for God's blessing and direction for peace, unity, good will, love and all those Christian character, Christian principles that go to make up a godly character. The service is worked out around the theme of God being our rock. In the theme the word survival comes and we cannot survive as a nation except we are built upon a solid foundation and that solid foundation is Jesus Christ the Rock. So we're going to build our lives on Jesus. We're going to build our nation on Jesus and we are sure that if we do that we will never fall. Our Lord Jesus said give us a, probably said there were two persons who wanted to build a house and one search and he decided to build his house upon the sand, another search and he decided to build his house upon a rock and the winds came, the rains fell, the waters flowed and that which was built on the sand crumbled and fell but the house that was founded and built upon the rock it stood. May our nation stand throughout the years. I shall now invite you to join in the Creole version of the 23rd Psalm. Military parade was held at the Queen Elizabeth Docks and was under the command of acting senior superintendent of police, Norbert Frederick. The St. Lucia police force, superintendent of police, Leroy F... On the independence docks it was over to Barbono where members of the St. Lucia Fire Service staged a display of firefighting techniques. Before the display, Mr. Peter Joseph, a resident and former school principal, inspected the ranks of members of the fire service. And following that, Primus J. Duplacy, the chief fire officer, addressed the public. Our display at Barbono, it was over to the youth rally at Feuford. We're taking now to the master of ceremonies for this occasion. With all the excitement and pride that this status generates, this year's youth rally is cooperation for national development. The message is quite clear, the inclusion must unite as one nation if we are to reap the benefits of economic and social development. Recent literature on development seems to suggest which must be present in the present people of religion. If they are to experience any real development, I believe one of these attitudes is cooperation. Our cultural presentation to portray this theme and this is beautifully done in two unique ways. One, the very fact that we young have to reenact and reactivate the customs and traditions of the past generation, recognizing that they give meaning to our present and direction to our future. Secondly, the message that each presentation makes, whether we are La Rose or La Mabewit, no matter what political party we subscribe to or what religious creed we follow, whether young or old, whether we live in castries or viewforks, we are one nation, St. Lucian's. Without further ado, I welcome all of you and invite you to share the sentiments of all the youth in St. Lucia in reenacting and reliving our cherished customs and heritage as performed by the youth. You will now be treated to a rendition by the school children. They will sing, I am St. Lucia, which was composed by Mr. Clement Springer. You will now be treated to the cultural presentations by the school children, the theme, customs and heritage of St. Lucia. The participating schools are Viewfort Comprehensive, Viewfort Senior Primary, Plainview Combined, PI Combined, Bellevue Combined and Derrisso Combined. Thank you. So, St. Lucia's 8th Independence Anniversary Celebrations. This has been a Government Information Service presentation.