Mary Reid

There's quite a story about this photo, if you've got time for it. 

From the left you can see the British High Commissioner to Jamaica, His Excellency Jeremy Cresswell. In the middle is the Acting Jamaican High Commissioner to the UK, Mrs Sharon Saunders. 

Then on the right are two key people at Kingston Council - Brigitte Pfender, the International Partnerships Co-ordinator, and Grahame Snelling, the Strategic Manager for Youth Support Services.

So what brought about such an illustrious, and Caribbean-orientated, gathering in the  Mayor's Parlour? 

It goes back to last year, when my diplomat cousin told us he had been appointed to Kingston, Jamaica as High Commissioner (which is the equivalent of an Ambassador in Commonwealth countries). His home, when he is not posted around the world, is in our Kingston, so before he left we met up in Frère Jacques and mulled over how we could create links between the two Kingstons.

In January I went to visit him and you can read my accounts of my time in Jamaica here. Whilst over there Jeremy kindly arranged for me to meet the Mayor of Kingston, as well as various civil servants, police officers and people working in the voluntary sector, with the aim of identifying some potential links. A theme emerged around young people, both in education and through youth work.

Two projects have been developed so far. First, nine schools in each Kingston have been linked together. Each pair has different objectives - exploring aspects of the curriculum such as literacy or geography.  The children will be communicating direcly with each other by email and post. There will hopefully be opportunities for teachers and children to exchange visits.

Some of the teachers from the participating schools

The other project aims to help youth workers share their ideas and expertise - again with the chance to travel and meet each other.

As I've been chatting around the borough about these links, other ideas keep being proposed. For example, our local Jewish Community might be interested in contacting the rather special Synagogue in Kingston Jamaica, one of the few with a sand floor. There is also much interest from our arts organisations in linking with groups over there.

So ... we managed to get almost all the people involved in the current Kingston-Kingston links into one place for a reception. I was really delighted that the Acting High Commissioner from Jamaica was also able to join us.

And didn't they chat!