 My fellow diaspora brothers and sisters, as our island prepares to mark the 41st Independence Anniversary, I take the opportunity to reflect on the past year on our journey to forge in stronger links between our diaspora and our beloved homeland. The road has sometimes been challenging, however it has truly been an enlightening experience for me and my team. Meeting so many of you, listening to your concerns, suggestions, ideas for investing and giving back was very informative. What was even better is the fact that so many of you have partnered with the diaspora affairs office to ensure that we do the best for St. Lucia and for St. Lucia's in the diaspora. There were some notable achievements I'd like to highlight here. The establishment of the diaspora resource team, they are a group of senior professional experts from the banking, real estate, housing, land acquisition, attorney general's business, customs, in and revenue, invest in Lucia, export St. Lucia, SSDF and the government statistics department. Those persons, they leave their very busy schedules to assist the diaspora via email, phone calls, face-to-face interaction or over Zoom. They answer all your questions, all your concerns and they satisfy whatever desire you have to know about what you want to do in St. Lucia. Their support is pro bono and they have demonstrated their selfless dedication to the commitment to social and economic development of St. Lucia and the importance of the diaspora. I have several emails from you, the diaspora, expressing your gratitude to the promptness of responses, assistance, courtesy from the diaspora resource team. My office and the government of St. Lucia is very grateful. The government statistics department is working with our office to design data collection tools which more accurately capture diaspora information. As ambassador, I visited six countries to meet with you, the diaspora, so that you can share your views in person. Two of those countries that I visited, the United States and Canada. In the United States, I went to four states and in Canada, two states. It was a very encouraging experience to engage with you face-to-face. This showed your appreciation in articulating that you had not received representation on such a scale. Thank you. Forging a strong relationship with the St. Lucia International Association, which I call the extension of the diaspora affairs unit, the St. Lucia International Association is a group of solutions who had been in the diaspora and have returned to the second in St. Lucia. Those persons have taken upon themselves a mandate to help other solutions who would like to return to St. Lucia or who have returned to St. Lucia to reintegrate into the society. To me and my office, this group is well-deserved of our owner and employees for the exemplary service that they are providing for the love of country. The database of our Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association has increased mainly due to the services offered, the new services offered by the diaspora affairs unit and the importance that our office pays to the relevance of the Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association. Many of you may not know and those of you who do know that the Union of St. Lucia Overseas Association is an umbrella body of all St. Lucia Associations and groups around the world. It's a satellite organization that governs the activities of those associations and I can tell you that for us, working and relating to them has been very important in matching forward in all the policies and activities that we have taken regarding the reintegration, the rejoining, forging, strengthening with our diaspora. The diaspora affairs unit now has a Facebook page where all news from the diaspora worldwide is posted. You send pictures, you send videos, you send news, announcements, etc. When we receive them, we post them on the page so that you around the world can see what each other is doing. You can connect with each other, you can contact each other. So this network is almost as if it was the network of the USLOA and this is why we created this page to keep you in touch and informed. We also have a database in our office here of all diaspora associations, groups and individuals. Now with those groups, we email you every day on all relevant information to the diaspora in fact and that would include job vacancies, what the government is doing in solution, the projects that they have advertised, anything that is of importance, we may think that's of importance to the diaspora so that you can communicate with each other around the world. Daily we increase and update the database at our office where we have wherever we have phone numbers, we give you a welcome call. We also send you a pack and this welcome pack have contact details of our office, of our diaspora team, government offices that you may have need of. It also has our diaspora policy and policies that have been already established that relates to the diaspora. Diaspora who come to St. Lucia for any reason are given the opportunity to be interviewed on the national television network NTN. When those interviews are done, it is Sam sent or emailed to all diaspora around the world so that you can hear what your fellow colleagues are doing around the world and those persons were interviewed they can tell about where they are, what the association is doing, what the groups are doing and this not only informs the diaspora but also informs solutions of what our diaspora are doing. The diaspora affairs office is indeed very grateful to the principal information officer Ms. Davina Lee and her team for this invaluable support. We are recognizing the significant contributions that the diaspora are making in countries where they reside. We ask all diaspora groups, associations, individuals to submit names of persons in the diaspora who have made significant contributions in the countries where they reside. Those persons will be recognized with various awards under the various categories and also will be given certificates. Now all nominees will be given certificates along with the awardees. The diaspora sent out the criterion for selection and that criteria for example were culture, business, education, youth, civic society etc. We began this nomination process in February 2019 and nominations were closed November 29th 2019. The announcement of awardees will be made on the 22nd of February 2020 as well as the announcement of all nominees However the awards to the awardees will be made at the Byanual Convention, the diaspora Byanual Convention which will be held in Calgary Canada on July 5th 2020. The diaspora affairs unit received 53 nominations and it was a very difficult selection process under the various categories. As far as we are concerned everyone nominated was very deserving. You did a good job in your nominations. Our diaspora youth have increased especially those in Birmingham, Toronto, Atlanta, the Young Return Entrepreneurs Group in St Lucia and the St Lucia UWI Youth at Centre Gustin. We would like to also note the appointment of the St Lucia New Council General to New York, Mr Alvin Landers. New York is one of our largest diaspora groupings and with this new appointment we are hoping that so much more will be done and we know that together we shall grow from strength to strength. It has been an interesting journey so far. The burner is so hot but the number of things planned for this year for you the diaspora. Woods cannot explain how grateful we are at the diaspora office for your cooperation and support in this initiative. You are completely on board and I have told you before how much we appreciate this journey together. Many of you have said that in the event season coming up this year starting in May that we will see the numbers of diaspora coming home to increase and that our office should be prepared for some visits. Please note that it will be a distinct honour and pleasure as it has been so far. Many of you over the Christmas holidays came to the office and when I wasn't there you came you asked to come to my home and you were welcome and you will still be welcome because that is what we are here for to serve you. I know that many of you will host your own activities to mark our nation's independence and I wish you much success. Please continue to share with us the photos and videos as you represent your country wherever you are, wherever you may roam. On behalf of the government of St. Lucia, the diaspora affairs office and myself, I wish you the diaspora an enjoyable and proud 41st Independence celebrations. Please be safe as you showcase your pride and loyalty to the land of your birth. Now is the time. Let's do this together.