On Friday 11^th June 2004, GraceKennedy Limited. welcomed six (6) second and third generation Jamaicans to participate in the inaugural Grace, Kennedy Birthright Programme. These young persons will spend the next two months living and working within the Grace, Kennedy family.

On Wednesday June 16^th the Government will welcome some 350 Jamaicans who reside overseas, to the conference programme “Jamaican Diaspora – Unleashing the Potential”. The conference focuses on developing links towards social and economic partnerships, and re-kindling the bonds of family.

These two programmes, as I see them, are vital in restoring our “family” in a broader sense, between Jamaicans at home, and abroad. The business and economic imperatives are blatantly obvious to anyone who has followed the developments in global trade, and also the changing political world scenarios following the end of the Cold War.

These business/economic benefits, largely depend on interaction between the two major settlements, the “at home” and the “overseas”. For us here at home, remittances, information, and a need for capital, drive our perspective. Those remittances constitute our largest single net foreign exchange flow, and without these our very way of life could be threatened.

On the other hand, for those abroad, Jamaica offers investment opportunities that either escapes the higher tax nets of their now host countries, or offer potential returns far greater than those which can be achieved elsewhere. This combined with a “local knowledge” which does not anticipate that we will ever renege on our debt, further sustains an investor confidence level which non-Jamaican do not easily understand.

I believe that these economic reasons are understood and fully appreciated by both set of Jamaicans. Migration and return have been hallmarks of the Jamaican story for centuries. We understand it, we live it, and none of us are untouched by the migration activity in our family structures.

But is migration only an economic action, which results in a purely monetary outcome? I think not, and that is why I consider these meetings to be more than Board meetings looking only at the short-term economic future.

Remember the opening lines of a song “If I could put time in a bottle”, and relate this to our Diaspora. These living “time capsules” have taken with them the strong beliefs, practices, ambitions, social behaviours, and other memorable characteristics that have allowed Jamaican culture, our “Jamaican-ness”, to be one of the most recognizable worldwide.

These brothers and sisters in the Diaspora have not left with our monetary assets or started a brain drain. Rather, we have entrusted them with the age-old secrets of what has made Jamaica great. They are the living repositories of the memories of what has allowed us unprecedented recognition in proportion to our size or wealth.

The Diaspora exudes the important outward manifestations of our national spirit – ambition, a desire for education, a strong self-image, a respect for elders, and a love for family and country. They pass this on though their generations in England, USA, Canada, Central America, everywhere in the world where two or more are gathered.

They continue our social preservation uninfluenced by the deterioration of that fabric at home. They hold to the older and most important ideals which make us so distinguishable as Jamaicans. They themselves adapt and change within the host countries, but survive and prosper because they cling to those Jamaican ideals and values.

They feed on national pride and build their own self-confidence and esteem, by those events and achievements, which we at home take for granted - the Miss World titles, the athletic successes, the Reggae Boyz, the Netballers, and the other areas of international influence. They make these into events which bolsters their image of Jamaican greatness, and it serves them well, as so it should for all of us.

So in 2004, we are about to open one of our time capsules. The treasures, which we will find preserved there, are not warped by political tribalism, gang warfare, narco-criminality, social breakdown, and lower educational standards. In fact, we will find them intact and only slightly changed. Through them we will see ourselves in a mirror through time, a rare glimpse of a paradise lost, but waiting to be regained.

This is the real potential of this gathering of tribes from home and abroad. Let us not try to convert them to our ways, but rather to learn from them those lessons strengthened by the different part that they have taken.

Let us respect the heritage of a kinder and gentler time, which they have preserved for us. Let us welcome them, respect them, and thank them for the good stewardship of the most important ingredients of what is the spirit of Jamaica. Let us honour them for the way they have carried out the responsibility, which has been entrusted to them.

These are the real opportunities for this meeting of the “Jamaican Trust”. Let us open the “time capsule” and re-order our local endeavors to keep in step with this spirit of Jamaica.

“One Love, one heart”. Hon. Robert Nesta Marley.