 A country's independence is a very important part of their history. Its sovereignty as a nation state is a success and both a benchmark upon which it can pave its developmental efforts. Therefore, I stand here as a very proud product of an independent nation, one that is conscious of its history and equally determined to pitch its developmental trajectory. And it is against this background we adopted the theme for this year's independence, now is the time. Let's do this together. My name is Raheem Agasin-Joseph and I will be your master's of ceremony today. So without further ado, I now invite the Minister for Culture and Creative Industries, the Honourable Fortuna Ben-Rose, to deliver some opening remarks. Last year, our country celebrated the 40th anniversary of independence under the theme All In. And what a year it was, you know, a year when we were all allowed to let go, you know, and be in and in most ourselves in what was happening in our country. And as a nation, we came together and witnessed many actions and changes for the betterment of our society. The heightened bursts of national pride during the celebrations, particularly the Independence Parade, to St. Lucia and St. Lucia's participating and winning many prestigious regional and international events and accolades in sports, youth development, entrepreneurship, tourism and culture. All of this happened last year and I think we were all proud St. Lucia's as a result. In 2002, our country realized significant decrease and Niles would be happy, significant decrease in unemployment, stimulating even greater levels of confidence and pride in our people. When it began this journey and in 2017, our theme for independence was the journey continues. Under that theme, our unemployment levels, because we're all concerned about unemployment, our unemployment levels were about 25 percent, yeah, in 2017. In 2018, we changed our theme around a bit and we said to St. Lucia's, I am St. Lucia, you know, let us be proud that we are St. Lucia's. And under that, we saw St. Lucia's call into action and of course our unemployment figures were not even further and we were all happy, 21 percent. And now at the conclusion of our 40th anniversary and under heels of the 41st anniversary of our independence, we have achieved 17 percent. That is good news for our country because we trend in downwards with respect to unemployment and we're exceedingly pleased and happy about that. And I'm proud to be a St. Lucia's because I can feel and see the progress that our country is making when our young people, particularly our young people and our citizens are finding employment in the space that we call St. Lucia. But the most visible change for me with respect to our celebrations last year was the physical change we saw to our landscape on the waterfront with the monument designed by Jali Mudevik, a monument that will be there for our lifetime. And Jali, of course, as you know, has been announced as a cultural ambassador, a good will ambassador for St. Lucia. We will have the final details on that later. But that monument reminds us of who we are and how far we've come as a people. It speaks to the value of working together to create synergies to make things happen for our country. The monument inspires us and reminds us that we are free, free to participate. It reminds us that as a nation, it's all of our business to ensure that this country succeeds. A monument that reminds us too, that it reminds us to of the past and allows us to focus on the now. This year, we turned 41. And so to build on that theme all in of last year, we now call our nation to action under the theme, now is the time, let's do this together. This theme is a natural flow, like I was saying from 2019. We are indeed mobilized and we all are mobilized and more importantly, we are ready for action. We must now move and we must do so together so that we can achieve the heights that we want ourselves and our country to achieve. We do have and for sure, I think our young people in particular, we love that. We do have authentic, transformational, inspiring leadership within our country, headed by our Prime Minister, Alan Chastney. And there is no contention about leadership in this country, it's very clear. We have a cabinet of ministers who together with our public service will continue to move the wheels of government for the betterment of our society. And we have a citizenry who continues to diligently work with my government to ensure that this nation succeeds. In the last year, we collectively experienced a measure of deliverance. You know, we have persevered, we have toiled and we have invested. We have learned and we are reaping the rewards for all to see. So now is the time for us to work together to continue to build St. Lucia. Now is the time for us to continue to foster the development of our artist, Madam Chair. Now is the time for us to embrace each other's uniqueness because we are all different, but we want the same thing. So we need to work together. Let us continue to separate the right from the wrong. We've been doing a good job of it so far as a nation. And I think we need to continue in that vein. Together, let us honor our greats. Let us continue to honor them, our legends, who paved the way for us. And we can see that we begin in that process. Together, let us focus on building one resilient and new St. Lucia. Already there's some major milestones in our quest to build that new St. Lucia. And we are indeed proud that every St. Lucia can identify with some level of measure of success realized in the past year. After all, we are still here. So we must give God thanks for the breath of life that we have and His mercies towards us. And as a nation, we pray for His continued guidance as we sail on, as we sail on from the monument as we sail on with our differences, staying focused on the course ahead. I want to thank you, Madam President of the Senate, Honorable Chanin Giroudi McIntyre, Chair of our Independence Committee, for the tremendous work and effort that you have placed in with your team this year to deliver again for us a package of programs that will be exhilarating, stimulating, exciting for all St. Lucia to find a place in it. And I also want to thank, of course, the permanent secretary from the Office of the Prime Minister and your dedication to the efforts, the permanent secretary and the staff of the Ministry of Creative Industries and Tourism, and of course the staff of all the other agencies and the volunteers across St. Lucia who will be working and pulling their resources and efforts together to ensure that we deliver a great program for our country. To the public, I want to say it's our country. It's our time. Now is the time. Let's do this together. Happy 41st birthday, St. Lucia, and may the good Lord continue to bless us all. Thank you very much, Honorable Senator Portuna Belrose. I would now like to call on the Senator, the President of the Senate, sorry, and Chairperson of the 41st Independence Planning Committee, the Honorable Janine Giroudi Makanta to deliver the introduction. So Independence 41 is around the corner again, and preparations have started. As chair of the Independence 41 Committee, I have the little bit of a boring task of having to tell you things like website numbers and Facebook and all that kind of thing. Ministers have the happiest, jolliest part, but we still have to do it. So, but apart from that, I really want to call on citizens to participate in the many varied activities, not just as artists, musicians, crafters, engineers, et cetera, but also those that can benefit from economic spin-off. So those that will be vending, those that will be assisting in any way to put on the events that we have. Now, the Secretary continues to be at Parliament, and members of the Planning Committee can be found there, as well as myself. Our telephone numbers and all that will be posted for you. The theme, as the minister said before, is now the time, let's do this. Or, let's say, a visa, and we chose that specifically because we did not want to come with your usual static lines like prosperity, people, and something else. We wanted it to be a call to action, and therefore it has movement. We're asking people to be on board, a call to action. Our website continues to be the same, independence.lc, and our email is independence slu41 at gmail.com. Now, I'm going to go briefly into the calendar of activities, and then we have most of the persons putting on the activities here with us, and we will call upon you to come up and say briefly what it is about. So we start in February with the Gospel Concert. And of course, we want to start our 44th anniversary with songs of praise and worship, and I will ask Ms. Kaldren to come up a little later and say a little more about it. Then we move on to Mr. Independence, which is one of the new activities, one of the new events that started last day. It was very successful, and Mr. Gregory Lord is in charge of that. We move on to the legacy Calypso show, which was a raving success so much so that we have to look for maybe larger quarters this year. But we certainly enjoyed it. Strides of unity will be put on by the youth. That is precious to us because it is the best way that we get into the community. And the community comes out, and so it is great advertising for most of our events. Then we move on to Ms. Independence, as usual, a staple of our independence activities. Then we have the Independence Horse Race. Of course, that's new, and there will be an Independence Cup. We have a Play-Bell Chai Commercial competition, and we will deliver the winner at the end of the month as well as for the 40th, because the 40th ended in December, and we've not closed off just yet. We have the Independence Youth Debate as usual, and I am not allowed to say what the topic is, so you can all tune in to hear them. It will be a little different this year. We have the Independence Creole Debate. Again, they won't allow me to say what the topic is, so you come to the town hall, and there you can hear. The Independence Walk. Mr. Michel is here with us, and we'll say a few words a little later about it. The Best of St. Lucia Concerts, which will be held Friday the 21st, and they will end with fireworks, the grand fireworks we had last year, not to the same extent, but they will be grand, at least I've demanded they be grand for less money. Then we have the National Independence Day Parade. That will start with our usual military parade, our address by the Prime Minister, and then it will move into the Independence Day Parade, which now boasts of at least 41 contingents, maybe more. So I call upon all citizens to join in with this. The ministries will be on board, the constituencies will be on board, all our usual artists, but I will allow Mrs. Seafley to go into detail on that. And then we have the Independence Ball on the Saturday evening, and then we have our Ecumenical Service on Sunday at four o'clock. And so I've gone through the list, and I will take my seat now and allow other team leaders to explain further to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I would do similar and follow similar vein and allow the Planning Committee heads to go on with the proceedings. So I now invite President of the Senegal National Youth Council to present his address, but before he does that, we will now show on the live screen the launch, the logo for the 41st Independence and also the release of the jingle. Thank you very much, a round of applause for... I now call on the President of the Senegal National Youth Council, Mr. Nyus Alfred, who will take you through the youth activities. Now is the time. Let's do this together. For the Senegal National Youth Council, the theme for the celebration of our 41st Independence celebration is quite fitting as we look to create a call to action for all our youth to contribute towards the continued progress of our nation. As we look with anticipation towards the decade where we will at some point celebrate our 50th Independence anniversary, the input and contribution of young people will be as critical as ever. The aim of the Senegal National Youth Council's contribution towards this year's celebrations is to inculcate a sense of pride and unity among our young people and to encourage youth involvement in civic discourse and engagement. The first of our activities is the National Photography Contest, where we hope to engage many talented photographers in St. Lucia. Photographers will be asked to submit images that will be judged on the two categories. The first category will be images that demonstrate the theme for this year's independence and the second for images that show the spirit of St. Lucia, as we certainly see, if you may. The deadline for submission of images is February the 24th, 2020. The winner of each of the categories will receive a cash prize of $2,500. We will also look to work with the Ministry of the Senegal Tourism Authority to use some of these images as part of the entity's destination marketing efforts. By our reports, Strides of Unity was one of the most impactful events on the Independence 40 calendar, and as such we see it as only fitting to bring back for the celebration of our 41st independence. The objectives of Strides of Unity are to promote the values of unity, peace, healthy living, especially among our youth, to execute a national event with the inclusion of young people from every district in St. Lucia, to encourage collaboration among young people from various backgrounds, to provide a platform through life and social media campaigning where young people can give their suggestions to the pertho of issues that they are faced with. To provide an environment where young people can engage government officials and individuals from the public and private sectors, further enforcing the objective of unity. As was the case last year, the relay will begin at the Governor-General's residence, with the Batao traveling down the West Coast, up through the East Coast, and back up North to end in Grusley. Through our youth and sports councils and other community organizations, Strides will engage hundreds of young athletes, bikers, skateboarders, and other young people across the island. Strides of Unity is slated to be held on February 9. We encourage all interested young people to register with their respective youth and sports councils. The third event, of course, is the Independence National Youth Parliament. There is a great level of importance that we must attribute to our parliamentary democracy as both a catalyst and an agent of change in our sovereign state. We, as the St. Lucian National Youth Council, recognize this, and it is for this reason that we embark on a full review and revitalization of our annual youth parliament. We have also done this against a background that 60% of Commonwealth's populations are young people. Therefore, the engagement and participation of young people in the established structures of governance continue to be imperative. I am pleased to announce that our national youth parliament will be part of the celebrations for the independence on February 18 under the theme, The New Faces of Democracy. Our youth parliamentarians have been selected and have already started their robust and extensive training in sessions such as foreign policy, public speaking, and understanding the complexities of St. Lucia and Caribbean social issues. In this year's edition, the St. Lucia National Youth Parliament will include the following. More periodic sessions, select committees, creation of position papers and ideological stances across thematic areas arising from debate, constituency outreach activities, inclusion of a shadow attorney general chambers, social media outreach which educates young people on the rules and functionalities of key positions such as the governor general, among other constitutional positions, and a breakdown of the political configuration in the chamber to 9-8. The mandate of our national youth parliament continues to be the facilitation of leadership skills and the thinking power, and most importantly, increasing the awareness on issues of national and international importance. The institution of the national youth parliament under the St. Lucia National Youth Council continues to remain committed to building and contributing one community and one constituency at a time. Outside of the independent seating, the national youth parliament will reconvene in April when we celebrate youth man and again later during the year. The St. Lucia National Youth Council would like to thank the chair and members of the independence committee for their support and we encourage all young people to review the calendar of activities so as to get involved in as many activities as possible. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I now call on the head of the National Independence Parade, Mishri Sunya Sifli. It is indeed a pleasure and I am very excited about the Independence Parade 41. Why am I so excited? Because we met with the communities last week and shared with them what we thought we wanted, you know, them to be a part of. And I can't tell you how excited these people are. What again I would like to say is that we expect the best coming out from the communities and the government ministries. In fact, up to this afternoon, I got two calls from library and Viewfort. And it is what it has done, it has engendered a creative leadership because they feel free to do as they would like to showcase their communities and we are going to see that on the road on the 22nd of February. So on the 22nd of February, when we have our big Independence Parade, we are going to see persons from organizations, from business houses. We're going to see the best of San Lucia, we're going to see our corporate houses, our, okay, I'm blanking out. Sorry about that. We're going to see the best that we have to offer. There will be weather walking, weather on foot, and we encourage them. In fact, we have some new and exciting features in that parade that's right now. I can't even speak about it. I think it's flowing from my mind and I'm saying, no, I have to hold that back. So just bear with me while we hold that back. So our feature this year, what we said we're going to do, we want it to be a celebration of people, a celebration of our San Lucian people. We have numerous icons in all areas and we are encouraging persons to celebrate them. There's some of them quietly go around in communities and we don't know all of them. So we have them in sports, music. We have them in religion. We have them in government offices. And so we expect to celebrate all of those persons in our parade. We have this year nine prizes and we were more or less forced to increase the number of prizes because when persons spoke about what we had last year, we felt we wanted to show everyone that we recognize the effort that they put into it. So the prices we're going to have, we'll have the most inspiring contingent, most original and creative design, the best representation of the independence theme, the best convoy or float award, Lucian pride award, best government ministry award, best constituency award, people's choice award, and the best national award. The people's choice, they've asked for that. And last year they put up and they said, hey, we wanted to have a voice heard in this. And that was awarded to Babunu. Oh yes. Yes. And they therefore know that they're under better pressure this year. So like I said, the eagerness of persons calling in really gives us hope that we're definitely going to have 41 or maybe even more. In other words, the people when they call in, what they're telling us is that the time is now. Let's do this together. They are ready. So all we can do is to call on all solutions, either take part in your community or come out and watch the parade because I'm telling you it's going to be something that we all will be proud of. Persons can contact any one of us via the email address independenceslu41 at gmail.com. And when I say we're all available, when you see the numbers out, we are all available at any time to give assistance or provide guidance, whichever way we can to help make the parade the best that it can be. Let me also say, I'm also very proud to say that our producer is going to be Barry George. Most of you know him. Thank you on behalf of Barry, he should have been here. Most of you know him. You know his creativity. You know his leadership. And I think from what has been happening, his phone has also been ringing from young persons calling him. And again, all what he's doing, allowing them to do their thing and just providing that creative guidance. So people, now is the time to do this. We are going to all do it together. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mrs. Sifle. I now call on Ms. Anselma Coljan to speak about the gospel concert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to personally commend the Independence Committee for commencing this significant celebration with prayer, worship, and thanksgiving to our Lord, who has taken us through this long journey. And this whole first of commencing with prayer and praise has given both to besides other schedule forms of praise, the Gospel extravaganza 2020, for which our subcommittee is responsible. The committee is comprised of Drenia Frederick, the production director, Dwayne Etienne, responsible for music layout, Barry George and Alfie Emanuel from Silver Shadows and Avid, respectively, assisting with choreography, drama and dance, and myself and Selma Cauldron, serving as the chair to the committee. The event will begin at 7.15 p.m. on Saturday the 1st of February at the National Cultural Center. And some of you who probably had your ears on the ground, may have heard that it would have been held at the Sab. For several reasons, we have had to shift it to the National Cultural Center. In keeping with the independence theme, now is the time, let's do this, this call for action. Our committee decided to focus on, now is the time, let us reflect, praise, love, give thanks and worship. The concept summary is as this, it's a one and a half hour production, featuring gospel groups, singers, dancers, choirs, and musicians from denominations around the island. It's a full production to open the celebration of the 41st celebration of St. Lucia's independence. And it's centered around the five levels or five themes that have been mentioned, where as a nation and a people of God, we are asked to reflect on the past, our struggles as a people, and how God has delivered us through difficult times. Love, we must first love God, love our neighbors, love ourselves and our nation, if we should really and truly see the success that we are anticipating. Give thanks. Give thanks for our blessings, for our achievements as a nation and for salvation. Worship, being grateful for God's grace in keeping us as a people and nation, celebrating His mercy and love towards us. Now, the production is structured and based on the five levels of praise. Each level forms a section of the concert. The audience is taken through the production by a live narrator, an angel. In fact, I'm giving you a taste of what it's like, hoping to capture your interest here. And chorus voices that sing along with the dialogue infused with scripture, highlighting its section to come. And the last level, the audience will be asked to join in the singing, the praising and giving of all this great movement to the Lord. A total of approximately 25 young persons forming the choir choir, singing total praise accompanied by Silver Shadow with a live band will commence the evening. The second level reflect featuring choir vocals and solist leading into a series of Negro spirituals. And you'd appreciate the fact that some of our very inspirational, powerful songs, particularly the Negro spirituals, the words, the music, came through some of these very difficult times that our people went through. And these will be dramatized through movement by Avid and Silver Shadow. The third level, core choir, and we have with us also one of our children's choir, singing songs reflecting the love of God and they are joined by the Silver Shadow Angels, we call them the babies, in colors of our national flag. The fourth level give thanks, choir, soloist groups, bringing out their best in giving thanks. Also featured at this time will be our St. Lucian, Barbadian, Rio Drinks, a powerful, powerful keyboardist. You will love her, just make sure you're there. The final two levels, Caribbean medley featuring our very own Pedro, accompanied by the mixed choir with audience participation. And then the grand finale, a number, the final number, with all performers in set. You may even see myself and probably madam and minister giving thanks and praise and of course the audience lighting up the hall. Now we know that this production will attract a large number of individuals and the cultural center could only house just about 800 persons. So we are giving consideration to ensuring that everybody who comes to the site is able to see the program. So we are hoping that we could organize a screen and tent on the outside, allowing everyone the opportunity who come to the site to enjoy the program. Of course, there will be lots on the outside, eats and drinks on sale so they will not be missing out too much. So we look forward to having a good beginning of this 41st celebration of independence, the gospel extravaganza and we hope to see you all there. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much, Ms. Cauldron. So we will now move on to Ms. Oghise Orr, Ms. Kriopatia, Ms. Kriopatia Anthony from the Super Moto Club who will give remarks on behalf of the Moto Sports Club. Now is the time. Let's do this together. And coming together is what the seven Moto Sports Clubs did with the very short space of time that we had to put on some great shoes. The seven sports club include the 4x4 Trailfinders Club, the St. Lucia Moto X Club, Lucia Streets, St. Lucia Auto Sound Club, the Association of Assorted Motoring Advancement, commonly known as AMA, Timeline Events and Island Time Attack. Every year, these seven clubs attract about 800 visitors to our shores. Coming from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Martinique, Barbados, Grenada, Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Guyana. This year, TIE Construction and Industrial Equipment Limited has given permission for us to utilize the yard at Bexor, which we have dubbed the Independence Valley. Arrival of our guests will commence from Monday 17th February to Wednesday 19th February. On Thursday the 20th, the welcome party for our guests and locals will take place at the Independence Valley from 7pm. Friday 21st, there is a cookout at Val's place in Dennery. Drinks will be on sale, food is free for everyone. This is the third year that Val is hosting this event on his own and this year we look at it as being one of the major events for us because it's a way for our visitors to interact with the locals. Saturday 22nd, Independence Day is jam-packed with events and because of the wonderful support that we've been getting from the Independence Committee, we have kind of tweaked our activity so we can be part of the parade. So from 11am, the Island Ride, traditional Island Ride will commence from Castries. However, the clubs, not everybody will be going on this Island Ride because as we said, we want to support the parade so some will be going. We want to note that for the Island Ride, strict safety procedures will be in place as there will be police outriders in the front and back of the ride. There will also be riding marshals with reflective vest to control the ride and to ensure that it is safe for everyone. This is also meant to keep away delinquent riders from this activity. As we know, around Independence, we have a large number of motorcycles on the roads and this is usually an invitation for the delinquent and not insured riders. So this year, we're taking a stand against that. 12pm in View Fort, the Ignition Car Show takes place. Ignition Car Show is started in 2017 where they wanted to host an event where they would bring everyone from the car, the car culture to come together to meet and talk about cars, 4x4 bikes and to see what it's all about. So it's more or less bringing about the community coming together to meet and get up close with the car enthusiasts. For our visitors, and that one has been kind of a controversy, we will be hosting a wet fed from 7pm with original artist. As you know, our guests will be here and though we're giving them part of our local culture, we wanted to do something a little extra for them. So that is one of the main events for them. On the 23rd, we have the much anticipated and exciting Supermoto at 11am. Supermoto started three years ago by the Newshire Motor Exclam and it takes place in Cass Trees. It has major, it is a major success as it showcases the bike rider skills on tarmac. So you have the motorcycles doing the wheelies and the rounds and you name it. So it has been a huge success and it will be at 11am Cass Trees waterfront. 1pm on that day will have the rally walls and this is where the drag cars and the 4x4s come together to have races. It will consist of a graded dirt circuit where the fast vehicles in drags and the fast vehicles in 4x4s will compete to cross the finish line in the competitive racing. 5pm, this start same Sunday is the sound clash at Independence Valley at Bexo. As we know, the sound clash is very popular and it's an ISCA sanctioned event I mean an international event where vehicles from different classes will compete to see who has the best sound quality and the loudest, sorry. The car audio is set up within the confines of the vehicle and the event is judged by a team from the Caribbean. After this event, the last event we have will be the farewell party as most of our guests will be returning from Monday the 24th. Our drag battle, much anticipated and look forward to has not been confirmed as they're still awaiting approval from Slasper. As you know, the airport expansion is going on and that is where our drag battles used to take place. So pending approval from Slasper, it will take place on Sunday the 23rd. We do look forward to putting on great shows to all our locals and our visitors and we invite each and every one of you to come out and support. On behalf of the Senutia Motor Sports Club, we would like to thank the Independence Committee for their unwavering and continued support for the last three years. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Cleopatra Anthony. Last but not least, we have the production manager of the best of Senutia Concert, Mr. Coyote Francis. Fasoah. The best of Senutia Concert. This concert will take place on the 21st of February and the concert will feature a wide cross section of performances by national artists, both young and old. Comprising dance, cultural and folk presentations, musical performances of varying genres, as well as art. The idea is to celebrate the best of Senutia's talent, the past, the present, the future. Under the theme, now is the time, let's do this together. The concert will take place in the capital of Castries from 7 p.m. and will culminate with an amazing fireworks display from the Castries Harbor at midnight, commemorating the 41st anniversary of our independence. The event is being produced by the Independence Committee in partnership with the Events Company of Senutia, and we look forward to as many pursuers as possible attending this celebration of national artistic talent as part of the 41st Independence Celebrations. I thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Versua. Yes. Mr. John Michelle will now make a presentation on behalf of the Walkers. Unlike the others who were lengthy except for Karo, I would be like you, Karo, very short. We... It's known that we have over the last seven years than what people still consider to be crazy. Walking 88 miles around our island is our eighth consecutive year this year. We have one addition to what was. We attended last year to do a really concept of the walk. There was one team, the Michelle Brothers, successfully completed. The relay is going to be cast, cul-de-sac to suffer one leg, suffer to view for another, view for to then return back to cul-de-sac, making it easier, more appealing to persons who have thought it was too crazy to do the whole thing. It was a late introduction last year, so the response was very poor. We hope in this year, now that it's known that we can appeal to more people. As we talk of appeal, I would really like to appeal to Madam President and your team to cause a little more enthusiasm by participants. We have over the last seven years completed 88 miles with rain, sand and whatever that is there and of course hurting feet and limbs and not welcomed by anybody. It has been heartbreaking by many persons feel that they've been ignored or neglected or not recognized. I noted on the program that there is a cow city, something in cul-de-sac on the 23rd, which incidentally is the day we will be ending. Your program has been stated for the work on the 21st as has been customary, but we wanted this change to accommodate a high percentage of Adventist participants. So we will be starting the work on Saturday at six instead of Saturday the 22nd at six instead of the 21st at five as they have it. Any opportunity you and your team can get to make that change, recognize, I would appreciate it. Generally it is about all I believe. I can say let's do what an average 100 solutions have done in the last seven years. Proud to be solutions and we, this is our part in celebrating our independence. This year it looks for the mindful that the women are taking over what the women started. We were blessed with the presence of the president of the senate and minister, but in a bear rose when the women decided they would do the challenge but half. That is grossly to be afford. We started with and I say we because I was a chief cook and but low ashen organizing. We started with 160 ladies out of which 12 completed the entire course. They really was very successful. There were 12 teams that competed and completed. So the women are showing that they are ready to take over what was a man's thing a few years ago. So my appeal to some of the men in the join us and ask others, ask your friends to join us. Let's hold that male chauvinist thing and not allow women to take over. Sorry, one more appeal. I look forward to your normal course and has to have a successful work. So with that we come to the end of the independence launch for the 41st independence of St Lucia. I would like to thank the planning committee for all of their hard work throughout this process. Members of the media, ladies and gentlemen, I am Ryan Joseph, master of ceremony. Now is the time let's do this together. Thank you.