Franklyn organises diaspora development in book
Published:Thursday | August 5, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer
On a soggy Friday evening, not unlike the weather to which many Jamaicans have had to become accustomed as they pursue opportunities in foreign lands, a collection of the efforts to build connections between Jamaicans at home and abroad was launched at the Mona Visitors' Lodge, University of the West Indies.
The Jamaican Diaspora: Building an Operational Framework is edited by Delano Franklyn, who said that while not ignoring work that was done before, the book focuses on the work done since 2002. In the earliest stages, host Earl Jarrett of Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS) defined it as one of the first Jamaican books that chronicles some of the transnational migration of Jamaican families around the world. Victoria Mutual Building Society's (VMBS) Richard Powell, after remarking that being Jamaican is no longer a definition based on geographical confines, noted that the Jamaican diaspora contributes significantly to the organisation's deposit base.
Dahlia Walker Huntington spoke to migration from a personal perspective. She left Jamaica in 1979. "Every Jamaican, regardless of their area code or zip code, takes their 'Jamaicanness' with them wherever they lay their heads," she said.
"Jamaica is in our DNA."
She was blunt, saying that somehow the Jamaican diaspora had been unable to turn individual achievement into collective accomplishment and the fledgling movement also suffered from a lack of leadership. "We need a deeper level of commitment from both the public and private sector," Walker Huntington said.
Guest speaker Douglas Orane, GraceKennedy chairman and CEO, concluded that Franklyn has shown "the benefits to be gained from organised and structured cooperation among Jamaicans at home and abroad".
Speaking last, Franklyn said, "I have always been of the view that Jamaicans must write about things Jamaican and we must do so before any other person comes in to write about things Jamaican ... . It is important not just to write about things Jamaican, but to record our own history."