Mark Beckford, Gleaner Writer
( L - R ) CLARKE and JASPER
KINGSTON AND London, the home of tens of thousands of Jamaicans who live in the United Kingdom, have pledged to breathe new life into a friendship agreement they signed three years ago and say they will launch a raft of joint projects before year-end.
"What we have managed to do is to get a basic framework for taking forward a very exciting initiative," Lee Jasper, a senior aide to London Mayor, Ken Livingstone, said in Kingston last week after a meeting with Lee Clarke, the deputy chairman of the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation (KSAC), the city's local government.
"We have huge levels of Jamaican expatriates living in London and they have a lot to contribute economically, socially and culturally," he said.
MAKING THINGS HAPPEN
The KSAC's Clarke is confident that, at least from his side, there will be a clear effort to make things happen for the benefit of both cities. "We have set a mandate today between the two cities," Councillor Clarke said.
A joint committee is to be established between Kingston and Livingstone's office to monitor the agreement and plan initiatives. But already there are plans for an environmental seminar in Kingston, with the participation of U.K. experts, to discuss the environmental problems of the Jamaican capital, including the issues of solid waste management, recycling and the state of Kingston Harbour.
Kingston Harbour is the seventh largest natural harbour in the world and one of the hemisphere's fastest-growing trans-shipment ports, but environmentalists say that the harbour is largely dead after decades of receiving untreated and partially treated sewage and industrial waste.
There are also plans for a youth exchange programme between Kingston and London which will allow young people of either city to gain work experience in the other and to imbibe its culture.
