Staff WriterNew York, NY: The NE USA Jamaican Diaspora invites Jamaicans in the Mid-Atlantic and New England states to meet on Saturday, November 8 in the New York Metropolitan Area to discuss the vision and progress of the new executive elected in June of this year. Site details will be confirmed shortly.
Patrick Beckford, a long-time resident of New Jersey and a principal with the Friends of Trelawny Association, was unanimously elected by the Jamaicans attending the biannual diaspora conference in Kingston to serve as representative from the Northeast United States to the Jamaica Diaspora Advisory Board.
Jamaican-American leaders and members of the general Jamaican community are invited to participate in this public conversation. Beckford will discuss the broad template for diasporic work going forward. Community leaders are invited to share highlights of their work and successes. Attendees will be encouraged to think of how their own efforts might be further strengthened via collaborative planning and execution of projects.
“Since June, we have been working hard to create an infrastructure and to address the goals for each sector,” Beckford said. “It is imperative that the Jamaican community in the NE USA has an opportunity to learn about this work and that we promote cooperation between all of the dynamic groups that have been actively doing work on the ground over the years.”
Beckford and other advisory board members have also called for Jamaicans in the United States to organize around pressing issues in their communities of settlement. “As members of a transnational community, we are invested in what happens on-island in Jamaica,” Beckford said. “But we have to be similarly invested in finding resolutions to the issues that shape our lives here in the United States.”
In addition to the sector work, the NE USA Diaspora is organizing resources to address issues stemming from the current economic downturn.
For information and registration email us.
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