A group from the New York Diaspora will wrap up a week of meetings with various governmental and private organizations today.{{more}}

The meetings were held to sensitize stakeholders as the United States based team is preparing to host a development conference in October 2012.

The team met with public servants, government bodies, private sector entities, the media and political parties.

“We want to brief all the major sectors about the major development conference which we are hoping to stage every two years,” Maxwell Haywood, member of the Diaspora committee, said.

He explained the reason behind staging the conference, saying that during the last two decades, the work of the Diaspora has taken off.

“Vincentians in the Diaspora, particularly in the US, have contributed significantly to the development of those societies,” Haywood continued.

He outlined the objectives of the conference which include the creation of a space in the Diaspora where Vincentians will be able to meet and reflect on the situation here in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the conditions in the Diaspora and come up with ways to move forward in the development of the country and Diaspora.

“We want to create that space where the priorities and the needs of the nation are highlighted and how we can move on,” he explained.

Other objectives of the conference, according to Haywood, include the unification of those in the Diaspora around the developmental needs of the country.

“Unless we know the needs we continue to hit and miss,” he said.

The third objective as given by Haywood was the drafting of an action plan covering several years which will contain how the Diaspora and St Vincent and the Grenadines will work together to build the needs of the country.

It is expected that the outcomes from the conference will be in the action plan which will be used to empower Vincentian organizations and people living in the Diaspora and how those living in SVG relate to those residing in the Diaspora.

“Coming out of the conference should be some kind of empowerment on both sides of the Atlantic,” Haywood explained. (DD)