Strengthening ties with the OECS diaspora

Media Release

A new cooperation is emerging between the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Diaspora and their home countries! Beyond regular remittances, the overseas OECS diaspora and home country governments are seeking to enhance the levels of connectivity, through a diaspora mapping project and a comprehensive communication campaign. Building more meaningful engagement is a long process and one which is being reimagined collectively, by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), OECS diaspora, OECS governments and the OECS Commission.

IOM seeks to support OECS governments as they move towards building capacity to manage migration in a sustainable and humane way. The OECS Member States have some of the highest rates of emigration in the world despite a strong sense of nationalism amongst OECS emigrants (IOM, 2019). As such, IOM wants to engage OECS migrants by offering a better understanding of the rights, benefits, and opportunities that migrants have under the Revised Treaty of Basseterre.

IOM (in collaboration with the OECS Commission), has commissioned two projects to advance this new cooperation, the development of a marketing and communication strategy to re-engage the diaspora, and a diaspora groups mapping project.

These projects will provide numerous benefits and foster greater connectivity amongst the OECS diaspora. The development of a marketing and communication strategy includes research to garner information from the diaspora such as: knowledge, perception, and levels of connectivity with one’s home country/OECS. Both in-depth interviews and surveys are being conducted across the diaspora in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, and all are invited to participate in the survey. The diaspora group mapping will provide a profile of organizations in principal destination countries, and the information will be available on an interactive map on IOM’s iDiaspora platform.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqdhUId3-Sb_l81PXHh2RX6f3XWjr-hPteNVYKPImP83kTOw/viewform?usp=sf_link

These projects are implemented under IOM’s Western Hemisphere Program, generously funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

For more information on this survey, please contact Terriah Ltd. (758) 714-6935.

For more information on these IOM projects please contact Nicholas Peters: npeters@iom.int.

Dr. Clarence Henry

Senior Technical Officer Regional Integration Unit, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

Nicholas Peters

 

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About The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

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The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is an International Organisation dedicated to economic harmonisation and integration, protection of human and legal rights, and the encouragement of good governance among independent and non-independent countries in the Eastern Caribbean. The OECS came into being on June 18th 1981, when seven Eastern Caribbean countries signed a treaty agreeing to cooperate with each other while promoting unity and solidarity among its Members. The Treaty became known as the Treaty of Basseterre, so named in honour of the capital city of St. Kitts and Nevis where it was signed. The OECS today, currently has eleven members, spread across the Eastern Caribbean comprising Antigua and Barbuda, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Martinique and Guadeloupe. 

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