 Welcome to NTN Nightly. I am General Norville. This edition stops stories. The small business sector is accessing and benefiting from government's economic recovery plan. The Ministry of Youth Development and Sports has unveiled a new logo and nurses celebrate their contribution to society. The St. Lucia Development Bank, SLDB, has been disbursing monies to the small business sector to help them mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. The financial support forms part of the government's Economic Recovery and Resilience Plan. How many Mark reports? When the Government of St. Lucia launched the Economic Recovery and Resilience Plan in July 2020, special arrangements were made to repurpose the Climate Adaptation Financing Facility, the CAF, to include a loan grant sub-facility, the business recovery program, which aimed to assist micro-small and medium-sized businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as those battling unavoidable effects of climate change. $2.6 million remain available under the CAF to help businesses through the business recovery program and to continue its traditional support to businesses, farmers and home owners in building resilience to climate change. Keegan Myers operates a 4.5 acre farm in the hills of Babano. He specializes in organic produce. In the past year, Mother Nature has assaulted his business on numerous occasions. Climate change has been possibly the most difficult opponent that we've faced in the last couple of years. To combat climate change, I actually embarked on a project to build a climate-smart greenhouse. That was one thing that we did to really try to push the envelope in terms of developing higher yields and better productivity. So last year in particular, we experienced, for the first part of the year, an extreme drought, and for a lot of the part of the year, we had an overwhelming amount of torrential rain. With his yields destroyed and his savings drained, a vicious cycle of mitigating the effect of climate change Myers approached the Sintuja Development Bank for funding under the CAF. They understood the plan that we were going with, that they understood the risks and they understood what we had in terms of assets to basically back it up. So that process, it took a little time, I'm assuming because it's a farm that has a different business model. So it took a little bit of finagling to get them to understand it. They did, and once they did, I think it was a really quick turnaround at the end. Martin Martin operates Bamboo Springs, a natural, unpurified water which is sold to hotels and households. With the tourism industry in a Komoto state due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his operations were severely impacted. Our revenue was dropped about 60% due to COVID. The Sintuja Development Bank offers the CAF business recovery loans at a starting interest rate of 4.5% with a 15% grant component. I saw out of this and they're willing to give businesses like mine grants or loans to help them recover from the COVID. I thought hey look, since I'm in that procurement, I suit the criteria for applying for the loan I did. I didn't necessarily have all the time to sit down and constantly do my books and so forth. So to have an institution that actually understands it's willing to work with you, it can understand that the value that you bring and can actually bring value in terms of working with you to develop your application and business plan so that you can go ahead through to get a loan and not just, sorry you don't have enough and shut you down and not give you the advice. That is profound to actually have that level of support. The CAF business recovery program received technical and financial support from the World Bank, the Climate Change Investment Funds and the European Union through the ACP-EU Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Program. From the Government Information Service, I'm Hermione Mark. The Government of St. Lucia continues to demonstrate its commitment to keeping the population safe while fighting the coronavirus. As part of St. Lucia's arsenal, the Ministry of Health and Wellness commenced the national vaccination campaign with the aim of adding an increased layer of protection for the citizenry. Assistant Principal Nursing Officer and Immunization Manager, Tegla Shabbatis, explained that the Government continues to work assiduously to ensure that adequate vaccines are procured. At the start of the campaign, of course, we received a generous donation of 25,000 doses of vaccines from the Government of India in phase one. We also had generous donations from our sister islands in the region. The Government of St. Lucia continues to procure vaccines. We know of the COVAX facility through that mechanism. St. Lucia, of course, has received two batches of vaccines amounting to 50,400 doses out of the allocated 74,400 doses from the COVAX facility. We expect the third batch of vaccines, which is 24,000 doses, sometime in early June, either the first or the second week of June. The Government of St. Lucia also has procured 100,000 doses of vaccines just to ensure that vaccines is available and is accessible. And that shipment of vaccine we expect very soon. The Immunization Manager noted that the aim is to achieve herd immunity where at least 70% of the population has been fully vaccinated. Our target is to achieve at least 70% coverage and we have a target of about four months to get to that. I mean, it is very important for us to return to some level of normalcy. And of course, it can't just happen this way. We know that public measures such as wearing our masks, keeping our distance, our physical distance, ensuring that we sanitize, this alone is not enough. And it is important that the majority of our population has this level of protection, get vaccinated, have that level of protection that will take us to a point where we can regain some level of normalcy in our lives. The national vaccination campaign was recently bolstered to include mobile and pop-up clinics in high-traffic areas where individuals can access to get vaccinated. This Jebatis stated was as a result of the slow uptake of the first dose of the vaccine. The Ministry of Health has decided to ramp up its community vaccination outreach. And that is to include the mobile pop-up vaccination clinics that would have commenced from last weekend. So from last weekend, we are now moving. We are actually, in addition to our regular vaccination sites that are ongoing throughout the weeks, these mobile sites will be going into communities. So we're actually bringing vaccination to the people. And we're targeting high areas with high traffic, especially on a weekend, the Fridays and the Saturdays. So from last weekend and moving on, you will be seeing these mobile pop-up vaccination clinics at various high-traffic areas across the island. Assistant Principal Nursing Officer and Immunization Manager, Tecla Jebatiste. The St. Louisian Nurses Association observes a nurses week with a month-long celebration of the extraordinary work of the nurses. More in this report from Fernelle Neptune. Nurses around the island were honored and celebrated for their dedication and commitment to their profession. The St. Louisian Nurses Association recently held a church service and awards ceremony at the Temple of Thames Pentecostal Church, placing focus on how critical nurses are, especially during this COVID-19 pandemic. President of the St. Louisian Nurses Association, Alicia Baptiste, thanked the nurses for their efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world. The way we live, socialize, work, interact with each other, and the way we deliver nursing care. It has raised the visibility of nurses like never before and underlined that nurses are indispensable to health care and the backbone of every health service. Nurses are on the front lines of this pandemic, separated from their loved ones and praised as heroes. But nurses are human. They are not angels or superheroes. They have the same needs and rights as everyone else. Pastor of the Temple of Thames Pentecostal Church, Pastor John Joseph, saluted all the nurses and recognized the invaluable work they continue to do. There are things that I love about nurses. They're immense pride in what they do, they work. You know what to do and you believe you are made for this. And this is part of what you are aspiring to be. The parallel between nursing and pastoring only begins here. Our common role is to give care or self-care for others. Nurse Alicia Baptiste also made a call to support the courage of the nurses under very challenging situations. Over the past year, nurses had some of the most critical roles and responsibilities during the pandemic. They will continue to be at the front line of health care in communities, primary health care and the acute care sector. Nurses have been leaders in ensuring that all patients receive patient-centered and high-quality care while performing in their roles and responsibilities. Nurses have sacrificed much including their physical, mental and emotional health and even their very lives. International Nurses Week is celebrated under the theme, Nurses A Voice to Lead, A Vision to Future Health Care. Reporting from the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, I am Fennel Neptune. This is MTA Nightly. Stay with us. Welcome back. The Ministry of Youth Development and Sports has unveiled a new logo. Ryan O'Brien has the details. The Ministry of Youth Development and Sports has unveiled its new logo in an effort to create a refreshing new look for the ministry to help in connecting with the youth. The unveiling was done during a brief ceremony held at the ministry's conference room recently. As we continued to use code of arms for all government agencies, we felt it necessary to bring the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports against this backdrop. We threw out a challenge to our young people and they responded well and the tale is behind us. We received more than 70 logos and then the prize winners were chosen. The Minister for Youth Development and Sports said the logo was brought to cabinet and embraced with open arms. The logo will appear on all our literature, our shoots, our caps, you name it, in all print and digital media including the website, all of our social media platforms and all functions associated with this ministry. It is certainly a brand new day for us at this ministry and we are happy to share it with you. This logo now gives us instant recognition as it allows us to stand out from the crowd. The logo focuses heavily on portraying togetherness and patriotism as highlighted in the use of the national colours. The trophy in the logo represents sports and winning. The blue circular shape adds aesthetic appeal and serves the purpose of keeping our youth together. It shows the importance of working together to ensure the improvement and continued development of the youth as the young people continue to fly the flag of St. Lucia with pride and dignity. From the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, I'm Ryan O'Brien. On Tuesday, May 19, 2021, Minister for Education, Innovation, Gender Relations and Sustainable Development Honourable Dr. Gil Rigabet shared a meeting with representatives of the Department of Education and the Ambassador of France's Excellency Jacques-Henry Yoles and Madame Christelle-Outremen Regional Councilor for Cooperation. The minister reminded the meeting that among other endeavours in 2018, a delegation visited Guadeloupe to discuss ways of managing the troubling sargassum seaweed issue. She also praised the delegation for the replast OECS project, primarily funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, aimed at tackling the problem of single-use plastics. Where education is concerned, Dr. Rigabet pointed out that St. Lucia has benefited from a number of exchange programmes to Martinique, involving physical education and French teachers and students alike. According to Pierre-Michel Charles, this initiative has exposed the potential for the St. Lucia Sports Academy to attract students from the French territories. With respect to the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College, Dr. Keith Nus spoke of the twinning of the college with sister institutions in Martinique, with an emphasis on hospitality training and culinary arts. The School of Agriculture at the college, he says, also presented opportunities for students from Guadeloupe and Martinique to come over to St. Lucia to study our agriculture practices while learning English as a subject.