 Welcome to Nationly Tuesday, I'm Richmond Felix, here are our leads. A new lawyer opens with warnings that climate change is having an impact on the judicial system. Event planners experience the island's offerings with the launch of a niche market. Farmers to benefit from incentives earn through a registration program. Rewards for the top-performing offsprings of the Ministry of Agriculture. Today the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court comments its new lawyer, with the Chief Justice calling on the governments and people of the Eastern Caribbean to embrace the concept of resilience against the realities of climate change. Dame Justice Vera's address to the special sitting of the Court centered on the threats that climate change has unleashed on the justice system. In fact, Tuesday, September 18 marked one year since the passage of Hurricane Maria, which wrecked havoc in the region, especially on the Commonwealth of Dominica. The Chief Justice told the legal fraternity that the judicial system is yet to recover from the effects of the storm that left courthouses destroyed and forced the relocation of prisoners. Such catastrophic events, she indicated, impede the delivery of justice. The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court comments the new lawyer, 2018-2019, with its usual ceremonial opening in the form of a special sitting of the Court. There were simultaneous special sittings in the nine member states and territories of the OECS. Chief Justice, her Ladyship, Dame Janice Pereira, delivered the opening address from St. Christopher and Nevis where the Court of Appeal is scheduled for its first sitting in the new law year. There, she highlighted the various challenges faced by the courts both internally and externally. The biggest challenges were those posed by natural disasters, namely, Hurricanes Irma and Maria. These two Hurricanes, according to her Ladyship, Dame Pereira, devastated the course of law and justice by rendering majority of the courts and prisons to name a few non-existent. Not discounting the damage done, she noted that some countries have yet to get back on their feet. She commenced with the plight of Anguilla, which was hit by Hurricane Irma on the 6th of September, 2017. The Court facility was forced to remain closed for several weeks whilst repairs were made and utility services restored. This physical interruption, though, did not prevent the hearing of urgent applications by telephone and video link as soon as telecommunications were restored by the direct routing of hearings to a judge located in St. Lucia. Full appeal hearings were also conducted in person and via video link from St. Lucia. Today, the Court's facilities are once more fully functional and were first to resume full operations after the storm. The Virgin Islands. The territory of the Virgin Islands received the brunt of Hurricane Irma as the eye passed directly over Tortola on the 6th of September, 2017. It caused the catastrophic damage to the territory, which is still in the process of recovering. Court infrastructure was severely damaged, judges and some court staff were rendered homeless, and all operations of the courts came to a halt. A breakdown of law and order threatened. The State of St. Lucia provided early refuge. One of the immediate measures put in place was the temporary relocation of the commercial division of the High Court, a critical component of that territory's financial sector to the State of St. Lucia where the court headquarters is based. The Chief Judge expressed gratitude to St. Lucia for its swiftness in coming to the aid of its sister countries. She highlighted that events spoke volumes to the need for paperless judiciary as a means of building resilience. Hence, the theme for the opening of the lawyer's address is challenges, opportunities and resilience, the ECSC paving the way to a modern and efficient judiciary for the Eastern Caribbean. She added that the court continues to work assiduously in the hopes of improving the quality of justice. Among the many targets for the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court is the sentencing guidelines and the state of buildings which house courts throughout the OECS territories. Over the years, I and Chief Justices before me have repeatedly spoken of and pleaded for the urgent need for governments to give some priority to and provide adequate court facilities. Fifty-one years on since the establishment of this court, little, if anything, has been done. Courtrooms are still housed in ill-suited buildings which have posed attendant security and health risks to court users and occupiers. Whilst courtroom closures are understandable following the passage of hurricanes and the like, it is unacceptable that court users and occupiers have been consistently placed in harm's way in respect of their health and security. This year, we have experienced the closure of the criminal court facilities in St. Lucia for security reasons and the closure of all courthouses in Grenada for health reasons. These failures pose a real threat to access to justice and the delivery of justice. The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court was established in 1967 by the West Indies Associated States Supreme Court Order No. 223 of 1967. The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court is a superior court of record for the organization of the Eastern Caribbean states, including six independent states, Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Neves, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and three British Overseas Territories, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Montserrat. It has unlimited jurisdiction in each member state. From the Government Information Service, I am General Norvel. The St. Lucia Tourism Authority has hosted the first major initiative promoting St. Lucia as a destination for meetings, incentives, conferences and events. Over a dozen meetings and event planners were flown to St. Lucia to learn more about the island and demonstrate why they should consider holding meetings and conferences here. Jacques Hingston Compton has a closer look at the outcome of this initiative. It was a festive Friday evening at Tapas on the Bay and these meeting and event planners were just beginning to get a Friday night feel for the destination. So they here, all of them, we have 14 of them. Everybody's first time to St. Lucia. It's a couple of them, first time to the Caribbean. So they're looking for new places for their companies to introduce new destinations and they're looking at and all of them have groups for 2019, 2020, 2022 because they plan a bus almost a year in advance. So they had to experience the destination to see what St. Lucia has to offer for their clients. This is my first visit to St. Lucia when I got the invitation to apply for the post-mice fam. I jumped on the opportunity and I wanted to come see what it was all about and how I could promote it and sell it to my clients. This familiarization trip is also intended as a networking opportunity for destination management companies and hotels selling vacation and incentive packages to large corporations in the United States and Canada. We have people from Utah. We have some from Arizona. We have Tennessee. We have Illinois. We have Georgia. We have somebody from Montreal as well and somebody from Massachusetts, from the Washington DC system all over the U.S. When it comes to selling to my clients, I think the first thing we see is just the beautiful, wonderful personalities. The gorgeous weather, the fantastic scenery and that's really what it's all about. It's about those experiences that you don't get to have at home. It's just the simplicity of the island actually is what really is just most amazing to me. Increasingly, corporations are seeking exotic destinations to hold conferences and meetings. Some are considered rewards for teams that have performed outstandingly. The meeting planners will network and experience for themselves the island's hospitality, sites and attractions and the quality of conference facilities. They're also having fun. Being able to come here and enjoy it firsthand and being able to see the destination from top to bottom has been great because we've been able to experience it and being able to go back and explain everything that we've seen and everything that we've done. The SLTA says some of these meeting planners are finalizing itineraries for 2019-2020 and the St. Lucia is included. Having experienced the destination firsthand, they are in a better position to develop more unique programs and to boost the advantage of direct contact with local industry players. Reporting from the Government Information Service, I am Jacking some content. This is Nation Beat. Coming up, introducing motivational interviewing techniques for key populations and farmers to benefit from incentives earned through a new registration program. The Ministry of Equity, Social Justice, Empowerment, Youth Development, Sports, Culture and the Local Government will be conducting the annual review for all public assistance clients and disability clients island-wide. The reviews will be held during the period September 17th to September 27th, 2018 at the respective welfare offices. Reviews for castries to see Millet, Babuno and Grozily are held from Monday to Thursday at the Head Office Waterfront Castries. Please note that there will be no review on Fridays. Ancillary office clients should visit their constituency council office on Wednesdays and clients from the other regions should visit their respective welfare offices on assigned welfare days. Please note that the following documents must be submitted to the relevant welfare officers for your area during the review process. 1. Client card 2. An updated doctor's book or letter as recent as one month doctor's book must be stamped using the hospital or health centre stamp for bed-ridden, sick, mentally challenged, amputees and elderly clients. 3. Booth and baptismal certificates for each child or children on public assistance. 4. National ID card for anyone 18 years and old. 5. All children at tertiary level institutions to Alpha Lewis Community College must submit proof of enrollment or acceptance letter from the institution. 6. Students attending primary and secondary schools should submit letters from the schools stating that they are still enrolled at school or present copies of last term's report. Public assistance reviews end on Thursday, September 27th 2018. For further information please contact the Ministry of Equity at telephone number 468-5108 castries and 454-6478 VA4 What's in the food you're eating? Do you really even know all the chemicals and horrors used to accelerate their growth? All the artificial flavoring sweeteners and colors too We consume and we don't spare a thought for the damage that they'll deliver Think about the children Think about the children Think about the children How will we save them? Emicols and GMOs are not the solution Use organic and join Excessive agrochemical use, additives and genetically modified foods to health and the environment Join the Good Food Revolution Grow, Buy and Consume Organic A message from Rye St Lucia and the Ministry of Sustainable Development with funding from the GEF Small Grants Program UNDP The Ministry of Health and Wellness with support of stakeholders is working toward creating an environment that encourages voluntary disclosure by key populations in St Lucia to improve communication technique Clint Simon has more Based on the recent population size estimate survey groups such as men who have sex with men transgender and female sex workers are very reluctant to disclose their sexual behaviors to family, friends and health professionals disclosure and concealment of sexual orientation or involvement in sex work is closely associated with factors such as stigma confidentiality and social support gaining a better understanding in the OECS of how best to facilitate disclosure while protecting medical confidentiality is a critical task if the subregion is to achieve the 1990 target set by UN AIDS to help end the AIDS epidemic In this regard the Department of Health and Wellness in collaboration with the OECS HIV-TB elimination project United and Strong UN Vulnerable Communities Coalition and the University of Alabama undertook a pilot initiative referred to as motivational interviewing to better understand and address key population disclosure in St Lucia a two-day workshop was facilitated by contact flex coach Maurice Burles of Behavior Change Consulting This guiding style of motivational interviewing was the key because they felt like we were partners we felt like we were on the same page and that's what they're learning here Okay, we've been doing so many things already but partnership is the key and really being in there and understanding their perspective and coming from especially coming from the same culture Bennett Charles, Communication and Advocacy Officer with United and Strong Inc expounded on the benefits of this training Till that motivational interview I think it's going to cover a sisters in a number of ways we've done two major research pieces in the Caribbean recently but more the OECS the Barrier Survey and the PSE Survey really showed how clients thought about the services one they thought that the services are very rigid and very autonomous and the services are not very engaging and so what the MI is going to do one it will assist nurses and other healthcare professionals in being able to have a more client centered approach in terms of how we engage the clients how we get information from the clients it will be more conversational so clients will be more open the other thing, if clients are more open they will be more willing to at least one if they have issues of the medication they will be able to speak to you a lot easier so it will encourage adherence and will also encourage disclosure and so hoping this training will equip the participants with the necessary skills to allow the clients themselves to be more open to be more engaged and really at the end of the day they will be able to have retain more people into care because that's one of the big issues it is hoped that a more comprehensive package of services will be offered to clients in Saint Lucia stemming from this partnership with the CVC the University of Alabama and behavior change consulting among other partners the workshop commenced September 13 at the pastoral center in Maricel for the Ministry of Health and Wellness Glenn Simon reporting to improve the planning of production will have the spin-off effect of producing valued incentives for the participants Anissa Antoine tells us more is essential to the success of the project it is the national farmer registration program and it entails the registration of all the farmers on the island be it crop farmers livestock or fisheries farmers the registration program will entail getting all the farmers to give us some sort of detail on themselves the registration process will assist in the planning of projects aimed at improving farming practices reason for the farmer registration is for it will assist both the farmer and it will assist the ministry it will assist the ministry in our planning we need to plan, have programs and projects and we need that data and that information to properly plan some of these programs so we know what we have how many cuckoo farmers cattle farmers and programs that we could put in place to assist them and also to help the farmers to access some of the incentives and concessions to be approved farmers need to be a citizen of St. Lucia must be actively involved in farming and must be able to submit data on crop or livestock production with valid identification registration will also facilitate the farmer's access to the market and enable him to be automatically considered for concessions and incentives from the government information service I am Anisia Antoine reporting speaking of agriculture and benefits corporate citizen digital has again provided support to the staff at the ministry of agriculture each year the telecoms company rewards the children of staff members who excel at the common entrance examination I want to encourage you to continue to work hard to strive for the top there is always room at the top in other words there is always going to be opportunity for persons who work hard ok whilst many persons have difficulty securing employment and getting ahead in life for those of you who do exceedingly well you won't have as much difficulty so there is always room at the top and I encourage you to continue to strive to get to the top continue the good work what you have done so far is just the beginning when students do well at school not only do they benefit in terms of getting good jobs and so on and so forth but also the country benefits because the country needs smart well educated citizens to help it develop the best and most challenging and interesting jobs are always reserved for the persons who are smartest, brightest who have the skills and the capacity I'd like to congratulate you guys on your success you guys are going to secondary school now it's a serious thing I would like to encourage each and every one of you to reach for the stars and work hard don't get distracted because you're at secondary school and you've succeeded and don't let what you're seeing around you take your eyes on your goal at the end of five years I believe you need to actually complete it successfully so aim for that and that's how we wrap up Nation Beat Tuesday on behalf of the entire production team I'm Richmond Felix