 This is the NTN Nightly, Out Top Stories. The government of St. Lucia is leading the charge on protecting the nation against the scourge of money laundering and terrorism financing. The Department of Finance is position in itself as a leader in public financial management. Efforts are underway for a sustainable heritage tourism sub-sector, plus the latest developments in the youth and sports with Ryan O'Brien. Hello everyone and welcome to the NTN Nightly, I'm Nisha Charles. St. Lucia is in the fourth round of its mutual evaluation process on implementing a mutual evaluation program as part of the 15th EDF capacity development for CAREFORM member states on financial compliance, asset recovery and cybercrime. As such, the National Anti-Money Laundering Oversight Committee has engaged the private sector in pre-assessment training sessions that would assist in giving St. Lucia a largely compliant rating. The mammoth task of giving St. Lucia a largely compliant rating when it comes to combatting money laundering, terrorism financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is continuing. Recently the National Anti-Money Laundering Oversight Committee engaged members of the private sector in understanding their role in the process. Also present at the training session was the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force that says the role of the private sector in these assessments is critical. It is a collaborative effort which will be between the government and state holders and it is a process which requires a lot of work. When ordered to be successful, as the chairperson said, you have to put in the work and work together and I'm quite sure that St. Lucia could be successful. In the third round St. Lucia was known as a jurisdiction that when they got to know the requisite deficiencies they stuck their head down and in no time they made the requisite changes and they managed to get out of the follow-up process at that time. This is a testament to the kind of dedication which the jurisdiction has. The Permanent Secretary in the Attorney General's chambers, Juliana Alfred, says the impact of St. Lucia not having a successful outcome has detrimental effects for everyone. De-risking, blacklisting, all of you are quite familiar with these terms and these are the overall implications for St. Lucia. So you can well understand that this is not confined just to the public sector but very much to you and to your bottom line. The purpose of the training exercise was to ensure that the private sector is well aware of the tools needed to be part of the national assessment process. From the Government Information Service, I am Janelle Norville. Meantime the Department of Finance has partnered with the Caribbean Centre for Development Administration, CARICARD in the development of a strategic plan aimed at positioning the department as a leader in public financial management with excellence in service delivery and fiscal stability whilst enabling the sustained socio-economic well-being of all St. Lucia. The Department of Finance has developed a three-year strategic plan based on the core values of accountability, transparency, professionalism, teamwork and integrity. Some of the key result areas of the plan includes improvement to revenue collection, oversight, monitoring and evaluation, research, policy planning and implementation, debt management, customer service, organizational development and promoting economic growth. The Deputy Director of Finance for Administration, Philomene Sinclair, said the planning process began in May of 2018. The Caribbean Centre for Development Administration, CARICARD was instrumental in the formation of the draft strategic plan including the mission, vision, core values and mandate for the Department of Finance. So today we were able to develop our strategic goals, objectives and initiatives. And of course the strategic goals, objectives and initiatives is really the core of the strategic plan because from that we will be able to develop our annual work plans. Sinclair added that the plan will force the greater cohesion and coordination among the various units in the Department of Finance. The major departments in un-revenue customs and so on operate for a high level of independence. So it is our hope that having developed that strategic plan together that we will be able to present our achievements, report in a more coordinated way and that it will allow us to work more as a team. CARICARD, an organization of CARICUM, has been in existence since 1980 and is referred to as the region's focal point for public sector transformation. Devon Rowe, CARICARD's Executive Director stated that CARICARD is focused on improving the administrative capabilities of the 17 Caribbean territories it serves with strategic planning being one of these activities. Our role here was to help the officers of the Department of Finance to be able to better sequence their activities, to ensure that the activities that have been identified are associated with appropriate strategies and that those strategies are costed and that they can fit within the budget and develop that the Department of Finance may have. In addition as well to the reform process is going to require significant thought, action and even more so implementation. The PS is focused on achieving results and we are here to help. Rowe added that strategic thinking will allow the Department of Finance to adapt to varying problematic situations to become more solution oriented. The strategic plan is expected to be fully implemented from April 2019. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Unit, Glenn Simon reporting. The Executive Director of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean ULAC Foundation is officially visiting St. Lucia on Tuesday. The Executive Director met with officials from various ministries and organizations to inform them of the Foundation's initiatives and how the island can benefit. The intention from the beginning was that the Foundation would be an international organization and we are just inches away to reach this objective. The agreement creating the Foundation as an international organization has now been signed by 58 of its member and it has been ratified so far by 21. We are just missing the ratification of the European Union of one additional Caribbean or Latin American state in order to be able to transform ourselves. The organization aspires to create economic and socio-cultural partnership between the countries of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean. I hope that this also will be a start of a more intense cooperation between the Foundation and St. Lucia. We have tried all along our trajectory to have a special place for Caribbean states since because of their position, because of their language difference with the Latin American countries, because of history and size, they have been less integrated in the community so we feel that we can bring value added with initiative that increase the visibility of the Caribbean in the two regions. The government of St. Lucia is well on its way to developing a tangible and viable heritage tourism sub-sector, Anisia Antwine reports. The government of St. Lucia as part of an existing program with the organization of the American states, OAS, has embarked on a project to enhance the framework for the development of heritage economy in the Caribbean. The current phase of the project focuses on the strengthening and enhancement of heritage economy in three OAS member states, Guyana, Jamaica and St. Lucia. Minister in the Ministry of Tourism, Information and Broadcasting, Culture and Creative Industries with responsibility for Culture and Creative Industries, Senator Fortuna Bell Rose, stated that community involvement is key for bettering the tourism product. This is indeed important, particularly as we are in the process of developing our village tourism product or program, which is a deliberate effort to bring out the unique attributes of each of our villages for the economic and social development of our people. The framework that will be established, you know, will really serve to assist us in shaping and fine-tuning the industry in the way that we want. It's very important that our people in the communities understand the value of that industry and what is it that they can do to enhance the experience of the people within there. And we know we do have quite a bit of history in communities, artifacts, cultural assets we call them and so it's important that our people understand. The Cultural Development Foundation, CDF, in collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Heritage Tours of St. Lucia Inc. organized a workshop on community engagement methods for identifying local heritage values. Participants in the program will gain a hands-on experience which will inform their country's sustainable heritage endorsement standard. Celia Toppin is the project manager of Cultural Heritage of the OAS. This is a training workshop to teach participants various techniques for involving communities in identifying places, values and places, products and services that they consider to be authentic representation of St. Lucia culture. One of the major milestones to arrive at the Heritage Tourism endorsement is the completion of the Photovoice project. As defined, Photovoice is a qualitative method used for community-based research to document and reflect reality. Celia Toppin explained that this method combines photography with grassroots social action and is commonly used in the fields of community development. You go out with your little camera or you can use the camera on your cell phone and you take photographs of places and of people which are representations of the heritage. You take these photographs and so on and then you interpret them. The workshop commenced on Tuesday the 5th of February and will end on Thursday the 7th of February 2019. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. In other tourism-related matters, the St Lucia Tourism Authority, the SLTA, is anticipating another big win on the hills of the island's awards as the Caribbean's leading honeymoon destination. The island has been nominated in the category of the best Caribbean island for romance by USA Today's 10 Best. Jackie Mathra is the Senior Marketing Manager at the SLTA. In 2018, we have the double win, a world's leading honeymoon destination and the Caribbean's leading honeymoon destination. We are aiming for even more in 2019, so this is just the beginning. As of now, we have been nominated by 10best.com for Best Caribbean Island for romance. We now rank at number 3 out of 20. To take this award home to St Lucia where it belongs, we invite the public to vote daily until February 21st. The winner will be announced on February 22nd, our Independence Day, because we are the romance capital of the Caribbean. You can vote for St Lucia by logging on to www.10best.com. And this is the NTN Nightly coming up, the latest happenings in youth and sports with Ryan O'Brien. Being away from home, surrounded by danger and hostility, unable to escape or speak the language, and being exploited, it might sound like fiction, 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 TIP Hawk Line at 847. Welcome back. Members of the World Pediatric Project are once again on island to provide invaluable medical service to the nation's children. We will have the details in a moment, but first we join Ryan O'Brien for the latest happenings in the youth development and sports. I'm Ryan O'Brien with an update on some of the activities presently ongoing at the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. The Ministry will be launching the youth mentorship program at the Coconut Bay Resort and Spa next month. The mentorship is funded by the National Lottery's Authority to the tune of $100,000 and targets secondary schools in Miku, VFOR and Chazelle. The purpose of this proposal is to outline a youth mentoring program as a key approach to promote positive growth such as character development, improve mental health and self-esteem, improve academic achievement and to prevent engagement in at-risk behaviours among youth in St. Lucia. The project is designed to be conducted at the community level, engaging adult mentors from various backgrounds including community leaders, professionals, clergy, educators, police officers and other community volunteers. The program will be implemented in two phases across 11 districts across the island. In year one, five districts, Dennery, Miku, VFOR, Chazelle and Souffre, will see the training of 10 mentors per district, a total of 50 and the engagement of 20 mentees. In the second year, the remaining six districts, Grosillais, Castries, Arsleray, Canaries, Labry and Babuno, will have 10 mentors trained and 20 mentees engaged from each district. The participants from year one will continue into year two though at a different level of engagement. The total number of trained mentors by year two will be 110 and the total number of mentees engaged by year two will be 220. As the date approaches for the National Sports Awards and getting closer, the excitement is building as to who will cup the prestigious awards on the occasion that the island celebrates its 40th anniversary of independence. Patrick Matre is the acting director of sports and he tells us that the judges will be deliberating soon to come up with the winners of the prestigious titles that are up for grab. We've been meeting on a weekly basis of an organizing committee within the ministry and it's really crunch time for us now because the judges have received the packages, they'll be coming back in sometime next week in terms of that would be the prestigious awards. Unfortunately, we wouldn't know until the night because those envelopes would be sealed but also in terms of putting on an entertainment package because what we pride ourselves on just not having a ceremony where we just give out trophies but to have a package where we feature young individuals because remember we know it's where as it may be sports awards it's also about celebrating our 40th anniversary with the people that we service in our youth and sports department so we have a few young performers very active, very sporty in their own nature who will be presenting to us on the night and so we're very excited in terms of what is that we're expecting of course as always we're trying to keep the ceremony quite tight at two hour ceremony so that is something we need to do and again at the royal turn we want to wow you so it's basically a tease and saying to you those of you in various sports awards don't miss it. The ministry of youth development and sports has identified the lack of leadership in youth and sports organizations throughout the island as a main cause of their instability therefore it is expected that Beckwith international leadership development build will develop a cadre of employable capable young sport leaders YSLs facilitating and supporting sustainable sport development across St Lucia. The local tutor training LOCTs is an intensive four-day course to run from February 25th to the 28th and will be delivered by lead trainers with the content focusing on the value of leadership training in the overall development of young people. After this first phase, LOCTs will be given the opportunity to conduct voluntary training with young sport leaders for an additional five days. The LOCTs will receive mentored support from the lead trainers and to plan and prepare the YSL training as a team of trainers sharing responsibility for the delivery of the course. The LOCT training is based on a facilitative interactive approach giving responsibility to the LOCTs to be involved in their learning to equip them with the facilitation skills and teaching methodologies required to deliver the young sport leaders course. Mentors and mentees participating in the program will be trained and provided with manuals to guide their interactions and activities. That's your update from the Ministry of Development and Sports. I'm Ryan O'Brien. Thanks Ryan. The world's pediatric project in collaboration with the Department of Health and Wellness will be conducting general orthopedic evaluations. These evaluations will be conducted free of charge for children up to the age of 21 years with various conditions affecting their limbs, neck, hips, hands and feet. Clinics will be held on Thursday February 14th at the Victoria Hospital and Friday February 15th at the St. Jude Hospital from 8 a.m. on the aforementioned days. Parents and guardians are asked to bring their child's recent x-rays when attending the clinic. For more information please visit your community pediatrician, private doctor or call telephone numbers 285-8155 or 4530714. Coming up, discounts for world cancer day. With just one click the internet connects people, businesses and nations. Being connected can open a world of information and opportunities. You can get services and products of your choice much faster. From electronic financial transactions to connecting with family and friends. From being up to date with the latest news and information to learning new skills and acquiring academic qualifications. All from the convenience of your home or wherever you roam. Get connected today. For more information contact the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards at 456-0546 or email slbs at candw.lc or visit the website at www.slbs.org.lc. St. Lucia Bureau of Standards making quality and standards our way of life. Welcome back. In the Caribbean region, cancer is the second leading cause of death. However, a significant number of cancer deaths can largely be reduced and prevented through many strategies including primary prevention, early detection, management and treatment of patients with cancer. This year the theme for world cancer day is I am and I will. It calls for personal commitment to help reduce the global burden of cancer. In keeping with the theme, the Department of Health and Wellness has launched a special campaign in partnership with fitness gyms and laboratories island wide. The campaign is geared towards helping persons make changes to their lifestyles and become more active. Chanel Alexander Dupre is the family life educator in the Department of Health and Wellness. Currently, various gyms are collaborating with the department to provide discounts to new members. The department would like to invite other gyms to come on board and play a part in promoting good physical health. During the week of the 4th of February, solutions can also take advantage of discounts offered by global laboratories and laboratory services and consultations limited to perform specific lab tests such as pap smears and cholesterol. The Department of Health and Wellness encourages all solutions to take this opportunity to embrace their health and make it a priority. And that brings us to the end of the NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7pm with a repeat at 7am. You can also catch up with us anytime on the Saint Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel.