This country has appointed five additional cultural and sporting ambassadors.

Fashion designer Kimon Baptiste and artist Lennox “Dinks” Johnson have been appointed as cultural ambassadors, while netballer and former captain of the St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) netball team Dellarice Duncan, Special Olympian Terrence Davis and Michael Findlay, former West Indies cricketer, have been appointed sports ambassadors.

The announcement was made last Friday during the military parade at the Victoria Park, which was held to mark this country’s 38th anniversary of Independence.

Addressing the gathering, Prime Minster Dr Ralph Gonsalves said Cabinet recently took the decision to appoint the additional cultural and sporting ambassadors, as the appointees are distinguished nationals.

During his address, Gonsalves, as has become the norm with Independence messages, revealed other initiatives that will benefit Vincentians in the coming months.

He revealed that 100 graduate teachers will be appointed from January 1, 2018, with more appointed over a three-year period.

Also, several dozen farmers, who were accorded leases of agricultural lands from the Government, will be facilitated to obtain full title for these lands. Gonsalves said this is of importance to the lease holders on the former Rabacca Estates, but it is also applicable elsewhere.

It was also noted during the Prime Minister’s address that in addition to the 29 scholarships, exhibitions and bursaries recently awarded to students who sat CAPE, six special awards of merit will be given to graduates of the Associate Degree programme of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Community College (SVGCC). Three of these will be exhibition scholarships and three will be bursaries.

Gonsalves also said that he has recently requested of René Baptiste, chair of the National Heroes Advisory Committee, the committee’s final report, so that the requisite legal processes can be finalized for the appointment of additional national heroes before or on National Heroes Day, March 14, 2018.

Gonsalves also revealed that the Government intends to commission a team of historians to write a single text history of SVG which will be used in schools. He said the Government will publish this history, because our history, “is in bits and pieces and we need to put in together.”

It was also announced that the commencement of duty free concessions on barrels will begin from November 15,

2017 and run until December 31, 2017. Last year, over 20,000 persons benefited from the concession.(LC)