We Gatherin’ Barbados postponed but not cancelled Loop Barbados

Black Immigrant Daily News

Cabinet will decide on a new date for We Gatherin’ Barbados.

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley revealed on Wednesday, at the Springer Memorial Secondary School for St Michael Speaks town hall, that the 12-month celebration of Barbados, which was suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be revisited early next year.

2020 was designated as the year for Barbadians across the world, to come back home to celebrate, participate and invest in events and projects across the island. However, that was put to a sharp halt on March 17, 2020 when Barbados recorded its first two COVID-19 cases.

“Cabinet will at some point look at a new date, a new year for We Gatherin’, because we believe that the excitement which it generated in the first 10 weeks of the year, tended for an extraordinary engagement and gathering of the families. And the fact that it was disrupted, will probably make when we do it again even sweeter because there is nothing like celebrating a journey that was difficult to navigate,” said the Prime Minister.

“I give you the assurance that at the appropriate time – once Cabinet has settled these matters, probably early next year – we will be in a position to announce when we think we can resume that wonderful exercise of gathering the generations back onto the rock,” she continued.

Mottley acknowledged that diaspora relations have been impacted due to the pandemic, and stated that the Government was on course to redoubling their efforts, to build a database accounting for Barbadians and the diaspora.

She continued that the country was troubled by a declining population, therefore, all Bajans must return home and to build a better Barbados.

“If we are not having enough people here to carry the weight of lifting this society, and if we are going to face as has been predicted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, that one in every two Barbadians will be over the age of 65 by the year 2050, we do not have enough time to do it the normal natural way.

And therefore, the first thing we must do is issue a clarion call to Bajans and the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Bajans wherever they are.”

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