Commonwealth Day celebrated in Santa Cruz

A MEET-AND-GREET of Commonwealth ambassadors to TT took place on Saturday at the Green Market in Santa Cruz as Commonwealth Day 2022 was observed.

This year’s theme was, 'Delivering a common future: connecting, innovating and transforming.'

Commonwealth Day, first celebrated in 1902, is an annual event observed by the 54 member countries in the Commonwealth.

Among the commissions present at Saturday’s event were the British High Commission, the Canadian High Commission, the Indian High Commission, the Jamaican High Commission and TT.

British High Commissioner Harriet Cross said it was a celebration of family with common history, languages, cultures, and diversity.

“We are experiencing diversity today. The day’s events are a chance to engage in conversation about different things like climate change, biodiversity and sustainability, gender roles and much more.

“We are celebrating the commonwealth games which will be held in Birmingham, UK later this year. It is a time to celebrate sport as well as culture.”

Jamaican Ambassador Arthur Williams was on hand to promote, what he described as the "famous Blue Mountain coffee" and to give a taste of Jamaica to the attendees.

He told Sunday Newsday that given the current geopolitical landscape, changes in trade and increased food prices it was necessary of Caricom to work together to ensure the region had steady food supply.

Williams urged Caricom to step up and coordinate the efforts by each member state towards the region’s food basket and food security.

“Caricom has a great coordinating role to play and anything that we (Jamaica) do bi-laterally we should allow Caricom to be involved.

“Jamaica is trying to ensure that we feed our people with local produce and minimise having to import large amounts of food and paying out valuable foreign exchange for it, when we can do more at home. There is a move to significantly increase our agricultural production and output.

“Jamaica will be pursuing agricultural prospects in Guyana because they have enough land space. We are hoping to utilise our sister countries in ensuring that the supply of food for the region is enough to reduce our import bill,” he explained.

The day’s events included booths, giveaways, food, drinks, music and networking.