Black Immigrant Daily News

The Canadian government announced Monday it will no longer require people to wear masks on planes to guard against COVID-19.

Transport Canada said the existing rules for masks will come off October 1.

“We are able to do this because tens of millions of Canadians rolled up their sleeves and got vaccinated,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said.

Government officials also confirmed Canada is dropping the vaccine requirement for people entering the country at the end of the month.

Canada, like the United States, requires foreign nationals to be vaccinated when entering the country. No change in the mandate is expected in the US in the near term.

Unvaccinated foreign travelers who are allowed to enter Canada are currently subject to mandatory arrival tests and a 14-day quarantine.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has agreed to let a cabinet order enforcing mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements at the border expire September 30. The Associated Press reported last week Trudeau signed off on it.

The government is also ending random COVID-19 testing at airports. Filling out information in what became an unpopular ArriveCan app will also no longer be required. Some blamed it for delays at airports.

The government will also no longer be required passengers to have pre-board tests for cruise ships.

“The removal of border measures has been facilitated by a number of factors, including modelling that indicates that Canada has largely passed the peak of the Omicron BA.4- and BA.5-fuelled wave, Canada’s high vaccination rates, lower hospitalisation and death rates, as well as the availability and use of vaccine boosters (including new bivalent formulation), rapid tests, and treatments for COVID-19,” the government said in a release.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Police have confirmed that there was a shooting incident without reported injuries in The Ivy, St Michael, this morning (September 26).

Residents in the area reported hearing the shots around 10:15 am in the Back Ivy.

Police have told Loop News that there was a report about 10am today of gunshots being fired in the area of the four cross with Roger’s Road and Ivy Main Road, St Michael. It is understood that two persons were shooting at each other. No one was injured and no reported damage to property was reported to the Barbados Police Service.Four spent cartridges were found at the scene.

The four-cross junction was blocked by police personnel as investigations were conducted.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Canadian government announced Monday it will no longer require people to wear masks on planes to guard against COVID-19.

Transport Canada said the existing rules for masks will come off October 1.

“We are able to do this because tens of millions of Canadians rolled up their sleeves and got vaccinated,” Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said.

Government officials also confirmed Canada is dropping the vaccine requirement for people entering the country at the end of the month.

Canada, like the United States, requires foreign nationals to be vaccinated when entering the country. No change in the mandate is expected in the US in the near term.

Unvaccinated foreign travellers who are allowed to enter Canada are currently subject to mandatory arrival tests and a 14-day quarantine.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has agreed to let a cabinet order enforcing mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements at the border expire September 30. The Associated Press reported last week Trudeau signed off on it.

The government is also ending random COVID-19 testing at airports. Filling out information in what became an unpopular ArriveCan app will also no longer be required. Some blamed it for delays at airports.

The government will also no longer be requiring passengers to have pre-board tests for cruise ships.

“The removal of border measures has been facilitated by a number of factors, including modelling that indicates that Canada has largely passed the peak of the Omicron BA.4- and BA.5-fuelled wave, Canada’s high vaccination rates, lower hospitalisation and death rates, as well as the availability and use of vaccine boosters (including new bivalent formulation), rapid tests, and treatments for COVID-19,” the government said in a release.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

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– Grevic Alvarado

More than 300 Latin Anerican women in Trinidad and Tobago have been trained in the Textile Entrepreneurship Route programme sponsored by the International Organization for Migrants (IOM) through the NGO TTV Solidarity Network (TTVSolnet).

On Saturday 125 migrants received sewing machines after completing the basic online sewing course.

Heidi Diquez, founding member/managing director of TTVSolnet, said: “Textile Entrepreneurship Route is a project born from the need to support migrant women in TT who, due to their immigration status and stay in the country, do not have with the same opportunity to achieve their economic stability and the progress they all deserve.”

The programme began in 2019, thanks to the alliance of TTVSolnet with the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), under a mandate from the Organization of American States (OAS) to especially support all those affected by the humanitarian and migration crisis in Venezuela.

The programme is financed by the Office of Population, Refugees and Migration.

The programme is only available to women in TT with irregular immigration status. Women from Venezuela, Cuba and Colombia participate in the courses, which are virtual, with a practical component lasting six weeks. Each student is given all the necessary material for the course.

Diquez said, “To date, the programme has trained more than 300 women, providing them with vocational training in the textile area from the basic sewing course, the manufacture of intimate apparel, repair and adjustment of garments and pattern-making, cutting and sewing.”

Diquez explained the project includes a special workshop on digital marketing in social networks that gave participants the tools to create virtual market spaces and help them promote their products and services.

“Another important part of the programme has been the alliance with IOM, who have supported it by providing sewing machines to all the graduates so they can produce from their homes.”

Diquez said at the end of the second cycle of training, “With great pride we congratulate all the women who participated in the workshops with commitment and effort to achieve their goals and delivery of projects.”

She also thanked all the facilitators of workshops for sharing their knowledge and encouraging each student to achieve perfection and quality in all their creations.

“We thank all our collaborators, and especially PADF and IOM, for their trust and commitment in helping our population of women entrepreneurs in TT.”

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Farmers tend to their crops in Aranguez. File photo/Roger Jacob

THE local office of the UN’s Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) wants an increase in the input of local farmers in the national school feeding programme.

It wants more local produce provided by small-scale farmers to be purchased and incorporated into the menus offered in the programme.

But with the price of local produce being extremely volatile, especially with increasing price of inputs in farming, the school feeding programme is being boxed-in, especially as it has a fixed allocation to supply meals to thousands of school children.

The FAO is now calling on Government to rethink its policies on food acquisition to get farmers to have a consistent price for produce.

During an interview at the FAO’s offices on Serpentine Road, Port of Spain on Thursday, officials spoke about the Resilient School Feeding Programs Project which started in 2021 and will continue until 2023.

The programme, FAO officials said, is the local component of a regional initiative which involves six Caribbean countries.

The main objective of the project is to strengthen the capacity of institutions and stakeholders to implement sustainable National School Feeding Programs that incorporate the purchase of products from small farmers.

At the end of the programme the FAO hopes that there would be a consolidation of the school feeding programme as an important safety net to facilitate access to nutritional food for schoolchildren and an income for small farmers.

They also want a platform for inter-sectoral and inter-institutional co-ordination to achieve food and nutrition security and serve as a viable market for farmers.

Last Monday, the Central Statistical Office said the index of retail prices indicated a 1.5 per cent increase of all items up to June 2022, including food and non-alcoholic beverages, which increased by 2.9 per cent when compared to the same period in 2021.

The increase in prices were as a result of increases in flour, ketchup and white bread but also increases in the price of several locally-grown produce including tomatoes, ochroes, melongene, green pepper, chive and celery.

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