Speech by Douglas Orane,
Chairman & CEO, GraceKennedy Limited.
at the official opening of Woman Inc., 2003
Saturday October 24, at 4:00 p.m.
at the Knutsford Court Hotel

Mr./Madame Chairperson etc.

Thank you for inviting me to speak at this official opening ceremony of Woman Inc. 2003 Trade Fair and Exhibition.

I do not accept many speaking engagements these days, as I have had to concentrate on managing GraceKennedy’s affairs in an environment where geographic boundaries are disappearing in front of our very eyes. This is not solely a Jamaican issue, but a worldwide phenomenon.

But I accepted the invitation to speak here today primarily because I wanted to say something about Jamaican women generally and about Woman Inc. specifically.

Let me begin by saying something about our Jamaican women. I do not think that our society generally recognizes the tremendous debt that we owe to our women. How many of us consciously recognize the fact that it is our women who have literally held this society together - who have worked and sacrificed and did without to raise and school their children - very often without either the financial or emotional support of a male partner. How many of our professional persons today - teachers, nurses, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, accountants etc. can claim with pride that they would not have been where they are without their mothers.

Today, women are still carrying the burden of leadership in our country, qualifying themselves in our secondary and tertiary institutions in fantastic numbers, leaving our menfolk trailing behind. I do not want to make any judgemental statements on this except to say that it is fair to predict that the Jamaican society of tomorrow will most likely be quite different to the society of a generation ago, as it is only a matter of time before Jamaican women claim leadership positions in every section in our country.

I have no problem with this, as I applaud the strength, the courage, the drive and determination of our Jamaican women. For those of my gender who may have a problem with this – my suggestion is that you begin to do what is necessary to change the focus of our young men so that they too become fired with the energy and the vision to learn and to achieve so that they may take their place beside our women as equal partners.

From this general recognition of our Jamaican women, let me move to the specific recognition of woman Inc. Nineteen years ago, a relatively small group of young, bright, imaginative and creative women founded this organization determined to build a framework within which they would, according to their mission statement, strengthen the position of Jamaican women through providing support services, public education and by lobbying for legislative changes.

It was a courageous move on the part of Woman Inc.’s founders. What is even more important and what I want to emphasize here today is that the courage of those founders has been replicated by those to whom the baton has been passed over the years. I say this because although I do not have any detailed knowledge of the challenges and the crises that the organization has faced – I know enough to recognize that without the grit and determination of many of Woman Inc’s. supporters over the years, we would not be here today celebrating Woman 2003.

In my view, the fact that the organization has survived in the midst of the economic, social and political storms which have been a reality in our country is something worthy of great recognition. An important part of the process of nation building is the building and maintenance of credible institutions to which people can look for leadership, for vision, for inspiration. Woman Inc. is on its way to establishing itself as such an institution – the maintenance of the Crisis Centre, a Crisis Shelter, a 24-hour hotline are among the continuing services offered by Woman Inc. which attest to this.

I pay my personal tribute and a tribute from all of us at GraceKennedy to all who have been involved and continue to work quietly and resolutely to assist our women, particularly our abused women.

It is a fact that there is much in Jamaica that needs “fixing”, many problems that we must continue to address systematically and speedily – but we must also recognize that there are some positive things happening in our country which gives us all hope for the future.

As I make this comment I am reminded of a visit which my wife and I made to South Africa recently. There were many striking things about South Africa but there was one factor which really attracted my thoughtful attention. Briefly, I was interested in the fact that South Africans are among the most positive people I have met anywhere in recent times and this, despite the fact that they have very high rates of crime – higher than Jamaica in fact– as an example 21,000 murders last year among 42 million people, and an unemployment figure of as high as 65% in many urban areas. But in the face of realities like these, they are moving ahead with their lives, maintaining a positive attitude and making gains in their economy - increasing tourism, more exports, a revaluing Rand – I contrast this with Jamaicans where we have allowed an obsession of ruminating constantly in a descending spiral of verbally beating up on ourselves to almost paralyse us. In my view, this is totally counter productive and I think that all of us need to help each other to snap out of this trend. From my perception, there are many positive things happening in this country today. Let’s start by concentrating on the positive things in our lives that we have control over, no matter how small, rather than on the negative things, no matter how big, that we have no control over.

I would like just to take a few minutes to tell you about one inspiring activity which I was privileged to be a participant in last Thursday. Some of you may know about GraceKennedy’s outreach programme in our communities which are funded and managed by Grace and Staff Development Foundation. Grace and Staff as we call it, was established in 1979 amidst the political and social turmoil of the time, “to build a bridge of human care and understanding.” The Foundation is funded by the contributions from staff and for each dollar that staff contributes, the company contributes two. Among the projects that we have taken are organizing and managing a Homework Centre, counseling and mentoring.

The Homework Centre has been such a successful project that we now run three of them – the first one on Tower Street in the vicinity of our headquarters – one in Barbican which is run in collaboration with the Barbican Baptist Church and one in Greenwich Town.

Basically what these centers provide is a quiet environment where youngsters can do their homework and can at the same time get some assistance and guidance. We have been proud to witness the graduation of many of these students who acknowledge how helpful the centers have been to them. 

The other programme of importance that I want to mention is the mentoring programme where members of staff undertake to mentor young people in the neighbourhood. This too, has proved to be very successful and particularly satisfying for those of us who mentor.

Last Thursday, we witnessed the launching of another programme for which I have high hopes.

In response to the Government’s Values and Attitudes programme, the Foundation, led by its manager Mrs. Frances Madden has devised a programme which is a series of workshops for parents drawn from Parade Gardens, to explore concerns and strategies for effective parenting and the impact of individual values, attitudes and actions on family and community life.

The programme which is called ‘One Small Move’ has been drawn up by Owen Ellis and Winston Bell, popularly known as Bello and Blacka, who have considerable expertise and experience in community development work of this nature.

The official launch was itself inspirational with people from the community - young and old - speaking, telling us about what they do and giving very creditable performances. Even more inspiring however was the fact that in the audience were participants who up to a short while ago were bitter antagonists. 

This has been made possible by the community itself which has come together to work towards creating an environment of peace and unity. An organization called the Central Kingston Task Team has been formed, comprising leaders of different segments in the community, and they are working with various people in the community including parents and past students of the Centre and the head of Grace and Staff, Mrs. Madden. Yesterday, representatives of all these groups were there and it was good to see and talk to them.

It is still early days and we do not want to make too many claims for this process at this stage. But I venture to say that this is a beacon of hope for all of us. More importantly, if this process works, it will be a beacon of hope for all Jamaica; it might become a model for other communities to follow to help to break down the barriers of distrust and fear which have kept us divided and unable to work together to find solutions to our common problems.

GraceKennedy will continue to do whatever we can to keep this programme going.

At GraceKennedy, we are committed to the process of community development in our neighbourhood. We have had long held the philosophy that reaching out to assist persons in our neighbourhood to develop their communities and themselves, is the best thing we can do for them and for ourselves.

We have also learned something that I believe is important for us to share with others, particularly those in business in today’s urban Jamaica. It is this. Better to take the initiative in reaching out through one’s own outreach programmes to our inner city neighbours, than to sit passively by and be eventually sucked into a vortex of succumbing to extortionists. Indeed, the biblical commandment “Love thy neighbour” now takes on a very urgent and most immediate meaning.

We have found involving ourselves in these outreach programmes to be immensely satisfying and very productive. We have learnt a lot and with great humility would like to share our experiences with anyone in the business community who might be interested in building their own bridges of human care and understanding with the communities around them.

We believe that like all of us at GraceKennedy, you will find taking this approach an enlightening experience.

Finally, my congratulations once again to Woman Inc. on its continuing contribution to our society.

It gives me great pleasure to declare Woman 2003 Trade Fair and Exhibition open.

Thank you and may God bless you all.