Labour Day to Honour Ancestors

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said Jamaicans should use the observance of Labour Day 2007 to honour our ancestors and strengthen communities, by working on projects that will ensure the legacy of our forebears is revered and maintained. She said this could be achieved by developing work projects that promote peace, love and unity.
Mrs. Simpson Miller’s charge was issued by Minister of Information and Development Hon. Donald Buchanan who spoke on her behalf at the launch of Labour Day 2007 at Jamaica House on Thursday (Apr. 26). The theme for this year’s Labour Day is ‘Honouring our ancestors.strengthening communities.’
Minister Buchanan said Labour Day offers an excellent opportunity to demonstrate respect for those whose work formed the foundations on which we build today. He said it was an occasion to honour those from whom the country has received its Jamaican identity.
He appealed to Jamaicans to make Labour Day a productive one in which “we draw closer together as neighbours, as communities and as a nation to honour the work of our ancestors and all those whose work contributed to the building of our nation.”
Minister Buchanan said that in observance of Labour Day Jamaicans should, if only briefly, stop focusing so intently on the things which divide us and instead, turn our attention to the love we all share for our country.
The national Labour Day project will be the resuscitation of the Bath Botanical Gardens which was established in St. Thomas in 1770. It is the second oldest botanical gardens in the western hemisphere and is the site on which plants brought to Jamaica were first planted. The botanical garden is credited with introducing plants to the famous Kew Gardens in London and for supplying the British Museum of Natural History with the collection of plants from Jamaica.