 Welcome to the NTN Nightly, I'm Nisha Charles. This edition's top stories. Invest St. Lucia moves one step closer to launching its business incubator and accelerator program. St. Lucia is set to commence the finalization of its national ocean policy. Students in the South engage in the third Financial Reality Fair. All that plus the latest in youth development, sports and the NTN Nouvelle Arquéon. In an effort to strengthen St. Lucia's entrepreneurship ecosystem, Invest St. Lucia has embarked on introducing its business incubator and accelerator program. While the project is hoped to begin during the first quarter of 2020, the business community is learning basic skills and knowledge about the initiative. In its continuing efforts to launch its business incubator and accelerator program, Invest St. Lucia ISL undertook a three-day workshop targeted at agencies providing business support services to the local business community. Invest St. Lucia's project coordinator, Dave Headley, explained the purpose of the workshop. The objective for the workshop was really to bring on all the key players and stakeholders within the entrepreneur ecosystem, for them to get a better position and understanding of business incubation, acceleration and how this all ties into developing a business framework. Areas covered included understanding the program and communicating its offerings, understanding key policies, client selection, business support services, management and governance arrangements. The workshop was facilitated by Thea Chase of Crida Projects, who is assisting Invest St. Lucia in the establishment of the program. She explained the model proposed for St. Lucia. We've been working over the past four or five months in St. Lucia to work with Invest St. Lucia to come up with an implementation plan for a business incubator. And the objective of the training that we've been doing over the past three days is to introduce some of the concepts that are in the proposal plan that we've prepared for ISL. And what we've proposed is the existence of a, or the startup of a business incubation and acceleration hub, which is a comprehensive set of resources and enterprise platforms that supports startups and existing businesses and helps to build the entrepreneurial ecosystem. So that's a lot of terms. That's a lot of words. And so the objective, or part of the objective of the training is to kind of dissect that and look at that. What does it mean? So what is an incubator? What is an accelerator? And what other types of programs are important and recommended in order to put in place in St. Lucia to really build this entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial culture that is burgeoning here? So we went through what is the, what is this platform? What does it do? How do you run it? How do you start it? How do you establish selection criteria? And what's the process of doing selection? How do you govern it? What kind of management needs to be in place in order to run these things? The agencies participating in the training span the wide cross section of the network of business support and included organizations such as Export St. Lucia, the Bureau of Standards, the National Skills Development Center, the St. Lucia Development Bank, Southern Business Association, the St. Lucia Manufacturing Association, and the South Lewis Community College. One participant, Peter Phillip, the Public Relations Officer of the Choselle Arts and Craft Heritage Tourism Association, explained the value he derived from the training. From the 3-day workshop, what I learned is how to implement the business incubator process. It is something that we have on a small scale, but this workshop is teaching you how to go on a larger or broader scale, and it will help to improve and uplift our level of doing business, not only at a level where we can exhibit our work or produce on a local basis, but also to create a broader market avenue for us as well. Inverse St. Lucia is well on its way to launching the business incubator and accelerator program during the first quarter of 2020. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reporting. St. Lucia is set to commence the finalization of its National Ocean Policy. The policy seeks to present an overarching vision, policy statement, and strategic outcomes for the marine and associated sectors. A validation meeting was recently held followed by a consultation on preparing a coastal master plan and a marine spatial plan for the blue economy. Genelle Norville reports. The National Ocean draft policy was developed over the last year and on Monday was presented to stakeholders who have been engaged in its development for validation. It is anticipated that the final policy will be endorsed by the Cabinet of Ministers in the near future. The marine spatial plan will establish a long-term plan for St. Lucia's exclusive economic zone. This is the entire marine space that the Government of St. Lucia is responsible for managing under the United Nations law of the sea. Dr. Cassandra Titli O'Neill is the key expert for marine spatial planning. The consultation yesterday was part of Crop 1.2, which is the development of National Ocean Policy. And so yesterday they were presenting the final plans and showing how those plans now bring over into what we're doing today. Well, the policies now have to be approved by the equivalent of our National Ocean Governance Council. And then they would have to be carried to Cabinet and Cabinet would have to approve it now as part of legislation. The coastal master plan will articulate actions to be conducted within the coastal region of St. Lucia. This is the area that is found immediately around the island and where most marine related activity currently occurs. Dr. Titli O'Neill explained the importance of the consultation. Today we are doing the consultation round for the coastal master plans and the marine spatial plans. These feed into the National Ocean Policy which sets the framework in order for these plans to move forward. And so today what it is we're basically trying to get from participants is what their vision is, what do they define as the coast, what do they define as the marine environment because in the legislation for St. Lucia it's not clear. And so we need to come away today with a consensus of what do you define as the coast and then that would help frame for us what should be inside of your coastal master plan and the marine spatial plan. The development of the National Ocean Policy, the coastal master plan and marine spatial plans have been initiated by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States OECS Commission as part of the four-year 2017 to 2021 Caribbean Regional Oceanscape Project, a global environment facility funded project endorsed by the Council of Ministers for Environmental Sustainability in 2015. For the Government Information Service, I am Genel Norville. Throughout the month of October, institutions across the eastern Caribbean currency union, the ECCU, will undertake activities commemorating Financial Information Month. A staple for the last three years in St. Lucia has been the Financial Reality Fair, facilitated by the Labry Cooperative Credit Union. A financial reality fair is an interactive financial literacy tool for secondary and tertiary students. The reality fair concept is a unique opportunity for students to experience some of the financial challenges they will face when they start life on their own. It's a hands-on experience in which students identify their career choice and starting salaries then complete a budget sheet requiring them to live within their monthly salary while paying for basics such as housing, utilities, transportation, clothing and food. Additional expenditures such as entertainment and travel are factored in as well. This is the third year that this event is being facilitated by Labry Cooperative Credit Union for students in the south of the island. We are actually coaching them in terms of how we think they can go about spending their income and at the same time achieve two important objectives. The first objective is to meet their monthly living expenses and the other is to save. Throughout the fair there are many temptations for additional spending and students must learn to balance their wants and needs to live on their own. After the students have visited the various booths covering components of independent living, students balance their budget and then sit down with a financial counselor for review. One of the things I've noticed is that they're very quick to come and get the loan right just so that you know they can have that extra money on hand to buy like phones and stuff like that so when they do come to me I do try and give like a hint and say well okay is it a want or a need like you know education is a necessity but an expensive cell phone is not. The harsh financial realities of budget balancing left many students stomped. I went wrong in um by NACA. The area I spent a lot of money on was on beauty supplies and electronics. Yeah I went bankrupt but it's okay so I know what to do in the real world. The fair was an excellent idea you know it took me by surprise personally. I believe that secondary school students specifically need more exposure to real life from experience so that they can temper their expectations for when they leave secondary school. Financial literacy training will no longer be a privilege reserved for students in the south of the island. Now that Library Credit Union is we're national we can now accept members from across St Lucia right this fair this fair is one of the things that we'd like to bring to all of the students around the island all of those young people who are now beginning to work all will be going into the world of work we'd like to bring those experiences to them over 250 students from VA for comprehensive secondary school from five and a level year two being filled secondary PI secondary and Ministry of Education post secondary program year two participated in this year's financial reality fair which was held on the grounds of Library Credit Union's V4 branch and this is the NTN Nightly Ryan O'Brien is up next how chemicals and GMOs are not the solution use organic and excessive agrochemical use additives and genetically modified foods are harmful 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 welcome back we join Ryan O'Brien for the latest happenings in youth development and sports welcome everyone to your update from youth development and sports on the NTN Nightly News I'm Ryan O'Brien some school sports results for you first off being field secondary defeated Clinton Mason Memorial Secondary 2-1 in under 15 football action for Beanfield Jose Matres scored in the 15th minute and Zaki Harper scored in the 55th then Nelson James scored for Clinton Mason Memorial in the 39th minute Beanfield led 1-0 and a half time persons with good social standing were carefully screened to ensure the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports selected appropriate mentors for the youth mentorship program consultant Dr. Zifers James noted that persons selected had to exhibit a number of significant qualities before being chosen to be part of the program we don't want to have persons who we are aware of offenders or sex offenders or persons who have had running civil law we want to ensure that persons generally speaking that are in good standing society that the society see as good role models these are persons in who are who are successful in their professions they are and and and they have something to give back and so there is a vetting process a recommendation process and an assessment to determine does this person fit the criteria in terms of their integrity and their moral standards and a professional approach to life their general department and how they they live life their general outlook in terms of having a positive outlook on life and so forth so it's essential that we we provide the best mentor the mentors for youth selected mentors recently participated in a rigorous training program to prepare them for their interactions with mentees and that's your update for today from youth development and sports on the empty and nightly news i'm ryan obrah the caracom secretary had joined the rest of the region in observing caribbean statistics day on october 15 the day was observed under the theme building resilience in the caribbean community michelle knows of caracom news time reports in a message to mark the occasion caricum secretary general ambassador erwin laroc encouraged everyone to reflect on the power of statistics and how it impacts our daily lives including in life and death situations such as natural disasters that affect us so often in caricum mr roger rupachand of the regional statistics department here at the caricum secretariat tells us about the significance of the day terms of objectives it's essentially to raise the profile of statistics in the in the caricum region it's also used as a call to to intensify the call for reliable and timely data for policy makers students researchers even business owners so they can have data to make informed choices and decisions now why statistics so difficult to grasp i guess in some cases people just have a sort of negative mindset to it people think it is hard maybe even a bit boring but the truth is i don't think people realize how useful statistics is in everyday life and how often we even use data without even realizing right so it's not only government officials or technical people who use data if you see for example in sports more and more data has been used in major performances of like athletes right the traffic lights for example we take it for granted how the timings maybe is set but ideally with some month of data would have gone into that so for example how many vehicles pass through a certain junction let's say in a minute all right and you could you could do a trend this over a period of a week or so and then you could say okay the green light at this junction needs to be no more than 30 seconds all right and but that's based on numbers and data that you would have collected and stay with the ntn nightly up next primus hutchinson is here with the ntn in korean if you are in receipt of an abnormally high bill it is highly possible that you have a leak that leak may not always be visible before you contact wasco conduct a do-it-yourself test one record your meter reading two do not use water for 30 minutes to one hour three take another meter reading if the reading changes you have a leak contact a plumber to identify and fix the leak at the earliest a message brought to you by the water and sewage company incorporated wasco welcome back we join primus hutchinson for the ntn we were was that if a kind of seat was sorry canary a communist deserf a touristic on your abdomenic fairy we make a key if only jean s a decommissioner to be born a trend ma popon advantage development was a lot program national for assist a jean s pia a prunio leta sasin up to collaborate to institute the trend ma deserf a touristic among the college you can put your secret jean s a decommissioner if you say the video is a la qui sorti a village a slurry canary kai swim see it when ma la book at all cement this was it among the college doctor alex a frame ecouager c participa popon advantage look at your solar you make a key it a guy i would do a you put employee a industry to a stick if you are hotel but to twist abené potlot doctor popo gam nap doctor win the mosheri de key it way important we are not not here we are a jean a les jean s doctor mosheri declare a key you made most of the sea car assist a c participa call it most of the sea capy participa kai to be six a dollar for transportation if you manage minister a fair touristic a co-operative post a week and a week on abdomenic fairy I made a commitment to seek participants who performed more than $1,000 per year. I also advise you to have a good advantage in your job to work in the tourist industry. If you know that you have a lot of chances for all these participants in Kawibla, Seyonasik, Wichon Latia, who have found more service to a stick, you and your participants, Roxie Francis, Natalia Lui, and Emmett Sherbin, will be able to provide you with a good opportunity to work in the tourist industry. Businesses must be successful here. I can help you to embrace the environment in a way that can provide you with a good opportunity to work in the tourist industry. This is the initiative of Export-Send Locher and the Bureau of Standards. This is the Bureau that has determined the quality of the product that has served the country and that it is associated with the investment. This is to place the business in a position that is more advanced, and more in favor of the environment. It is not just that, it is not just that. It is not a product that is better, it is different than the others. It is to encourage the parties to appreciate. Chef-officer Export-Send Locher, Senator Daniel, noted that there is a place that has shown that this is a very good place for people to serve the country, which is in the same way. There is also a good place for consumers to make a high profit, more than $1 billion in the country of America. But this is the problem, and I think that this is a good place for people to make a decision not to serve the country, but to serve the country and serve the country, so that it can affect the environment. I think that this is a good place for people to make a decision not to serve the country, because the conditions are very good for the country, so that it can continue to take the place in America. The production of the stock that has been assisted and the money that has been paid for 10 years is the third time that this place has been visited and the money that has been paid for the problem has been solved. There is also a good place for people to make a decision not to serve the country, because the things that have been assisted and the money that has been paid for the problem have been solved. The other plan is to make this place soon for the next generation to come and make a decision in the KC intellectual center in Foyakoude For. So this is what everyone should do, these are the three areas that should be considered. It is important to make sure that can see problems that are a threat to them and to continue to assist them. There are three clinics in the hospital, every second Saturday, I have a cast tree, a facility in St. John's Ambulance, every third Saturday, and a wellness center every fourth for three days a week for those who need to assist their different patients. All these patients receive equipment to help the patient, first, with a single foot massage. And that's why we're here today. Thank you very much for your time, for watching, for your invitation. I would also like to say that when you live your life, you will have a lot of new experiences. That's why we are here today. Thank you, Pil Primus. And here's a look at what's happening to us, weather-wise. Partly cloudy to cloudy skies with scattered showers and a few thunderstorms. A tropical wave is currently moving over the eastern Caribbean region and it will maintain cloudy conditions with scattered showers and a few thunderstorms across the islands during the next 24 hours. Another tropical wave located over the central tropical Atlantic is moving westward near 15 miles per hour or 24 kilometers per hour. The tide for Castries Harbor is high at present. The tide for Vier 4B was low at 12.21pm and is high at present. The seas like to moderate with waves 3 to 5 feet or 0.9 to 1.5 meters. The sun will rise Friday at 5.55am. 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. I'm Nisha Charles.