The Caribbean Business Review

By Gerald V. Paul

Welcome to the “Through Our Eyes” Diaspora Caribbean Business Review.

First stop? The Western Union and GraceKennedy presentation of Network Caribbean Borderless Possibilities, in collaboration with the Caribbean Consul Corp. with former prime minister of Jamaica P.J. Patterson as keynote speaker at the CBC Atrium on May 6.

Thanks to Consul General Lloyd Wilks for the invitation “join us for the networking event of the year.”

Also on hand will be Don Wehby and Sean Mason, group chief executive officer of  GraceKennedy Ltd. and vice-president and general manager of Caribbean-Western Union respectively.

Wilks recently shared Jamaica’s vision and mission when their Minister of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Arnaldo Brown spoke of the sixth Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference 2015, June 13-18 in Montego Bay, with the theme: Jamaica and the Diaspora: Linking for Growth and Prosperity.

Eyes will be in Montego Bay to cover this event. Eyesers may recall an intrepid Eyes taking a taxi from Montego Bay via mountains to Kingston’s UWI Mona Campus to cover the Caribbean in the Twenty- First Century Conference.

Among the topics is Corporate Social Responsibility. And this is where The Caribbean Camera’s close to 20 years of Through Our Eyes columns will continue to serve our beloved community in the area of giving back as in a hand up.

By the way, Eyes will be alongside former consul general of Jamaica, George Ramocan, the current president and CEO of the Canada Caribbean Business Council.

Ramocan, like Eyes, is a member of the clergy, so we see this as an extension of the work of doing good and making the world a better place.

And with friends like Guyanese John Persaud and Jay Brijpaul, both successful businessmen and humanitarians, Eyes will continue their good work while in Guyana networking with the business community as a columnist and humanitarian, covering their general election via business news.

Eyes will be at the five-star Marriott Hotel. Wow! The first five-star hotel in Guyana’s history.

I will interview the staff from the executives to the chef and cover other prominent businesses that requested I “see for myself” the progress and development since 1992 when Guyana returned to freedom and democracy under the PPP/C.

Meanwhile, Eyes interviewed the newly minted Barbados high commissioner to Canada and will cover her over the weekend at the Barbados Consulate, meeting business and tourism officials.

And of course, Eyes with sit down with the consul general of Trinidad and Tobago who also serves as the dean of the Caribbean Consul Corp.

Dear Eyesers, you know me as a journalist first by calling in this work of faith and labour of love. Having counted the cost as a teenager, I have stepped into the water of the deep, doing my God-given calling without fear or favour, so help me God.

So I am still a journalist and photojournalist. But there comes a time when we need to like Mohandas Gandhi fight for freedom and democracy.

The Through Our Eyes Business Review will feature Gandhi’s (CEO, fuh real) 14 principles to guide and inspire modern leaders, principles from a supremely good man. Stay tuned.

Gerald V. Paul
Gerald V. Paul