Good Evening.   As we begin the 2021-2022 school year,  we do so with the collective knowledge that our decisions today will determine whether we remain mired in the pandemic for another school year or we begin to see our children carefree again and back in classrooms all across Jamaica.  Let’s make the decision to get vaccinated today.   On...

Based on the latest report from this morning, Jamaica recorded 555 new cases of COVID-19 and a test positivity rate of 41.9%. Three additional persons died yesterday from the pandemic. I offer my sincere condolences to all who have lost a loved one. Yesterday, we also had official confirmation of the presence of the delta variant in Jamaica. This is...

Fellow Jamaicans at home and in the diaspora, greetings on this the 59th anniversary of Jamaica’s Independence under the theme, “Come mek we celebrate online”. Over the past 59 years, Jamaica and Jamaicans have made great strides and overcome many struggles to become a sovereign nation with an admirable legislative framework and a unique culture, which is globally recognized. Our...

My Fellow Jamaicans, as we did last year, we are celebrating the anniversary of our nation’s Independence in the midst of a pandemic.  While the pandemic has dealt a severe blow to our lives and livelihoods, we have, as a nation, done well together in managing the crisis.  We have been able to do this through the hard work and...

Today, we celebrate our 59th anniversary as an independent nation, standing tall among the community of nations across the World. We Jamaicans have made our impact on the world. Our culture is an international trend-setter, increasingly influential due to its magnetic appeal. The many manifestations of our culture – be it our music, dance, food, artistic imagery, language, and expressions...

183 years ago today on August 1, 1838, the descendants of trafficked and enslaved Africans, who themselves grew up in generations of slavery, finally celebrated their full freedom, as declared in the Emancipation proclamation. There are many reasons to be considered as to why the British Parliament decided to end slavery as a means of social and economic organization in...

Greetings Jamaica! This is our “emancipendence” week, when we celebrate two significant milestones in our nation’s history – Emancipation Day on August 1st and Independence Day on August 6th. For a short period after our Independence, we stopped celebrating Emancipation Day as a separate holiday. Thankfully, in 1997 Prime Minister PJ Patterson fittingly re-established Emancipation Day as an official national...