Reception held to honour Commonwealth Day

The Royal Commonwealth Society Barbados Branch partnered with the New Zealand High Commission in Barbados to host a reception in observance of Commonwealth Day on Wednesday night.

Speaking during the festivities, President of the Royal Commonwealth Society Barbados branch, Kaye Williams expressed that she was so grateful to His Excellency, Anton Ojala, New Zealand High Commissioner to Barbados and his team for making Wednesday evening’s event possible.

Williams explained that this week, the RCS joined other independent Royal Commonwealth Societies across the globe in celebrating this occasion and revealed that this year’s theme was “Delivering a Common Future, Connecting, Innovating and Transforming”.

She noted that while RCS Barbados was a distinct entity from that of Commonwealth, RCS Barbados remained committed to promoting the values of Commonwealth as these values helped to define the family of nations.

In the past, Williams highlighted that they have been able to partner with the New Zealand High Commission in the past in order to highlight and provide platforms for our youth to be able to learn about such values.

Ojala highlighted this year’s Commonwealth theme and stated that the idea of a common future is an interesting one as the Commonwealth was diverse with 54 countries represented. He believed that the specific strength of the Commonwealth lay in the diversity and the shared inheritance of the language, culture and rule of law bound together by shared history and tradition.

“On another level but also in the context of preserving values such as tolerance respect and understanding, New Zealand will commemorate the first anniversary of the Christ Church terrorist attack on the fifteenth of March when a gunman opened fire killing 51 people while they were praying,” he said.

“As we do so the New Zealand Government is working on rolling out a long term approach which includes elements such as social inclusion, reducing racism and hate speech and keeping communities and crowded places safe,” he added.

Ojala encouraged persons to reconnect to the values highlighted by the Commonwealth, such as good governance, human rights, tolerance and the like; not only at a national level but also within their families, communities, organisations and their businesses. (CLJB)