ROSEAU Dominica, February 6th, 2012 -- In response to the July 31st 2011 murder of an Irishman, Joe Costello, and the criminal injuries of Americans Rick and Alicia Davison at Pagua Bay Guest House in Marigot, Dominica, the Peaceful Dominica Initiative (a working committee of the Peaceful World Movement) has received several inquiries about its involvement in an action plan for maintaining a more peaceful Dominica.
Most of the inquiries have been about the status of the proposal that Dr. St. Jean (through his Chicago based company Quality of Life Solutions, Inc.) presented to the current Dominica Cabinet on April 14th 2011. During that presentation, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit offered to provide Dr. St. Jean and his team with an update after the Easter season of 2011.
The request for that proposal was initiated by Prime Minister Skerrit during early January 2011 through Canadian based crime victim specialist, Athenia Benjamin, asking that she and Dr. St. Jean prepare and submit with expedience a proposal to address issues of crime and violence in Dominica.
The proposal was written by Dr. St. Jean with assistance from Ms. Benjamin, sociologist L. Daisy Henderson, and a few other reviewers. It was then submitted to Prime Minister Skerrit on February 8th 2011, and as indicated above, was brought before Cabinet on April 14th 2011.
On August 3rd 2011, Prime Minister Skerrit provided Ms. Benjamin and Dr. St. Jean with an update indicating that, “The government at present or the foreseeable future cannot afford the rates. We have however been in touch with the OAS to see if they can assist with some limited funds to implement an aspect of the proposal."
We interpret this update to mean that Cabinet has reviewed the proposal and accepted the substantive plan within it, but is not able to fund it without external assistance. Thus, considering the urgency with which we believe an agenda to maintain and improve peaceful Dominica should be undertaken, we have decided to assist the Government and peoples of Dominica to locate the necessary resources and support to allow the items of the Proposal to be implemented to the fullest possible extent.
To this end, we have decided to post the Proposal here in its entirety so that persons who are interested in supporting our endeavor can have full access to the information and respond to us accordingly.
We imagine that the Government and peoples of Dominica will welcome our web posting of the Proposal since this move is intended to allow as many people as possible to access the action plan, have collective memory of its logics and recommendations, and assist us in our efforts at implementation to the fullest possible extent.
We wish to remind our readers that our effort is not aimed simply at implementing a program (which is usually time specific). Rather, we seek to activate a Peaceful Dominica Initiative to positively influence the needed cultural, social, economic, psychological, spiritual, and other dimensions of our society for the immediate, midrange, and long-term sustenance of peaceful Dominica.
To this end, we invite you to review the proposal and provide us with your comments, questions, and support. Please respond to us through e-mail at,peacefuldominica@peacefulworldmovement.org or by telephone at 716-603-0992.
Please visit our website again soon for another document which outlines our prioritized action plan derived from the Proposal.
We hope that this Peaceful Dominica Initiative can be successful at uniting Dominica nationals of all walks of life, affiliations, and persuasions for this urgent common purpose. Let’s not wait for the next major criminal catastrophe to strike us directly, or “close to home” before becoming as proactive as this Proposal asks of us.
The life you save, the child that you save, may well be your own.
Prepared by Working Committee of the Peaceful Dominica Initiative August 11th 2011
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