 Welcome to Nation Beat. I am General Novel bringing you this brief on the pulse of our nation and highlights around the heart of St. Lucia. The third annual Soleil St. Lucia Summer Festival has taken off tailored to meet market demand. Government's injection of US$12 million over the next 15 months in the sports sector is set for rollout and St. Lucia students continue to give a good account of themselves on the international stage. The third annual Soleil St. Lucia Summer Festival has taken off. The year-long bundle of music events was officially launched Friday 25th January at the Harbour Club. This year, organisers have ensured to tailor the various segments of the festival to meet market demand. Soleil St. Lucia Summer Festival was launched in grand style taking on the form of a flight. Attendees journeyed through the various events consisting of St. Lucia Jazz, St. Lucia Carnival, Roots and Soul Festival, Food and Rum Festival and Arts and Heritage. Minister in the Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries, with responsibility for culture and creative industries, Senator Honourable Fortuna Bell Rose lauded the events company of St. Lucia for its continuous efforts in making the festival better than the last every year. She added that St. Lucia is now reaping the fruits of the formation of the entity and the changes to the island's festivals. We honour all. It's the third year. We had trial and errors. We made mistakes the first year. We improved the second year and in the third year, we begin to bear the fruit that we want. So the relationships are beginning to build. The partnerships are beginning to get stronger and so we will continue to realise what we want. So we are on the upward movement, upward trend and we just trust that we can continue to build the capacity of our people to be able to take us where we really want to go. Chief Executive Officer of the events company of St. Lucia, Thomas Leos introduced the Food and Rum Festival. According to the CEO, this will be the festival's second instalment since the inception of Soleil St. Lucia Summer Festival. Leos provided a breakdown of the festival. Thursday 19th with a bartender's workshop. It will be a two-hour session delivered by Caribbean Journal or the creators of the Caribbean Rome Awards. We will also have an aspiring young chef competition where we shall pair St. Lucia chefs with aspiring chefs and even students as well who are interested in culinary arts. Also on the Thursday, we'll have the Caribbean Rome Awards welcome cocktail. To the VIP welcome cocktail, we'll get to taste the featuring rums in the competition. We shall have, of course, judges who are exploiting that area. This time around, the CEO indicated that the opening event for the Food and Rum Festival would be open to the public. Meanwhile, the St. Lucia Jazz Festival for the first time will be produced in collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Centre. Representative for Jazz at Lincoln Centre Jason Olen spoke to the partnership. So we have a couple things to announce which is that we have a festival from May 5th through May 12th. And it's going to be happening all around the island. We looked at a number of fantastic venues today and the lineup, the artists, local, regional and international jazz artists are going to be collaborating with each other indoors and outdoors. It's something we're very excited about. Something that's interesting and I think that is going to send a message to the global jazz community and people that have never been to St. Lucia is that we have a handful of artists and residents who are going to be basically calling St. Lucia their home away from home. They're going to be here for multiple days. For the St. Lucia Summer Festival 2019, the St. Lucia Jazz Festival is scheduled for the 5th to the 12th of May. St. Lucia Carnival June to July, Roots and Soul Festival 23rd to 25th of August, Food and Room Festival 19th to 22nd September and Arts and Heritage as scheduled for October. The agency responsible for stirring investors to the island says its services are not exclusive to foreign direct investment. Investing in Lucia has indicated that local businesses are also factored into its mandate. And it's what Antoine explains. Investing in Lucia is seeking to improve on the entrepreneurial landscape on the island. Consequently, ISL has implemented new initiatives and programs to aid and encourage new businesses. CEO Roderick Cherry explained that Investing in Lucia has committed to develop an angel fund to support local entrepreneurs and business in general. The angel fund would really provide financing for some businesses that meet certain criteria. It would be very competitive. And the businesses that we're speaking about are those businesses that may have difficulty obtaining financing from the normal financial institution. So we will be the angels to help them. We are currently in the stage of developing terms of reference so that we could get a consultant to really fine tune the way we are going to do it. Last year, Investing in Lucia collaborated with the Chamber of Commerce, Junior Achievers Saint Lucia and Young Entrepreneurs to launch the incubator and accelerator programs. The purpose of the incubator program is to help startups in their conceptual stage. From our standpoint, we want to come in at a higher level and help facilitate any investor, local, foreign, and so we help facilitate. But it will not be a case where the small business would come to us. We will help facilitate on a higher level. For instance, our incubator program. We also have another program not mentioned here where we're looking at our factory shelves and cutting up the space of the factory shelves into smaller spaces so we can give smaller businesses the opportunity to rent at below market rates. Cheri stated that the Board of ISL is determined to finance the programs to ensure the completion. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. Meantime, Government has made a substantial injection into the Saint Lucia Development Bank, SLDB, for local business development and housing. Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Shastney made the announcement during his New Year's address to the nation. He called on young people to take advantage of the opportunity. Initially we promised $10 million injection. However, noting that the SLDB has attracted a significant number of persons wishing to own a home and improve their economic and social well-being, we doubled the amount to $20 million. The bank can now provide support in the areas of home construction, home renovations, home extensions, house and land purchase as well as support entrepreneurship in the areas of agriculture, fishing, village tourism and manufacturing. We emit this time to give our young people a chance to achieve their dreams. They have so much energy, creativity and so many innovative ideas. Many made even more achievable by the availability and the access to technology. And we will create that support system as they continue to be our inspiration. Further investments in the nation's youth will come to fruition this year as government presses ahead with plans for the creation of a School of Excellence in Sports as well as much-needed upgrades of sporting facilities island-wide. The young people of this country are a priority for our administration, hence the reason we are investing so heavily in upgrading our sporting facilities and creating a School of Excellence in Sports, which are due to open this year. Our administration is investing U.S. $12 million over the next 15 months to finance the design, development, construction and upgrade of several projects including the Suframini Stadium, the Denry Sports Complex, the Grosle football ground, the Miku North Sports Complex, the Miku South Sports Complex, Grosle Secondary School. Our athletes must know we're in the corner cheering them on, not just in words. The funds from the St. Lucia National Lottery will be dedicated to funding youth development and sports. Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Shastney, this is NationBit, we're back in a moment. But for 40 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, it is a reality. Innocent people enticed by the promise of a new life, then enslaved into forced labour or sex trafficking, human trafficking happens in plain sight. Know the signs, see it, report it. To report suspected cases of human trafficking, call the TIB hotline at 847. Welcome back. St. Lucia students continue to give a good account of themselves in the Commonwealth as a competition. The competition is an opportunity for all young Commonwealth citizens and residents regardless of religion, education or background to share ideas, celebrate their story and have their voice heard, always developing key skills. Judges described entries to the competition in 2018 as fantastically imaginative, hopeful, quite exceptional and passionate. According to junior judge Michelle Samuel, a total of 12,000 students from 52 Commonwealth countries participated in the competition. I understood how difficult it was to earn gold, silver and bronze awards. And after the results came out, I was really adamant in knowing how did our St. Lucia students did. And I was pleased to know that 10 students participated and of those 10, 6 actually got gold, silver and bronze awards. Yes. And what really amazed me even more was the level of excellence in their pieces. In 2015, the contest was renamed the Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition in honor of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's role as both head of the Commonwealth and patron of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Six inclusions received awards of gold, silver or bronze. Three students, two securing gold and one silver, were all hand to read their winning essays. I'm only 10 and no one listens to 10 year olds. Yet we are expected to learn to be leaders. How? No one listens to what we have to see now. When we are young, we have the most to share and we do it honestly but no one wants to hear. Like switching on the radio and vis-a-vis focusing on chores, we are nice companions, sometimes the only evidence that grown-ups have achieved something in their lives. But we are not taken seriously. We are asked to be quiet, keep it down, shut up. A safer future would be possible when the grown-ups around me will start to listen to us and realize that we are not as dumb as they think. I would then make my way to the podium to enthusiastically represent our Commonwealth gold medalist for high jump, LeVon Spencer. Our sportswoman would then address the primary school students telling them that they can do greater things. She would then mingle with the students, putting the gold medal around their necks and taking selfies with the children and creating a place of inspiration right there in the school. In 30 minutes, the theme for the 2019 Queen's Commonwealth Essay Competition, a connected Commonwealth. The competition is open to all citizens and residents of the Commonwealth age 18 and under and runs until the 1st of June 2019. And speaking of giving a good account, Aline Malfrey, a St. Lucian immigrant who secured a job as a nanny when she first arrived in the United States 17 years ago, has not only pursued her dream of attaining higher education, but has also become an entrepreneur. In 2011, Malfrey launched My Nanny Circle to provide empowerment for nannies through constructive dialogue. The platform offers resources for nannies who are keen on staying informed about their profession and adding value to the service they offer to families that they serve. On February 9, 2019, Malfrey will officially launch Nanny Apparel. The collection features a variety of clothing and accessories such as caps, sweaters, t-shirts, jogger pants, tote bags and leggings inscribed with empowering messages to instill pride in nannies as they fulfill their daily roles. Now the holder of a degree in psychology and a minor in public administration, Aline Malfrey, is also currently completing a master's in science clinical trials biopharma. That's Nation Beat. Join us next time on NTN at 7.30pm. We for repeat at 7.30am and on this station as we fill the pulse and heart of our community. You can also catch up with us anytime on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I am Janelle Norville.