JAMAICA’S ambassador to the United States, Stephen Vasciannie, is to give the keynote address at tomorrow’s launch of the University of the West Indies Western Jamaica Campus Ambassadorial Corps.

Ambassador Vasciannie, who arrived in the island on the weekend, will officially launch the historic WJC ambassadorial programme at the Five-Star Iberostar Grand Resort in Montego Bay, at which 12 outstanding members of the business community will be named emissaries of the campus.

The Ambassadorial Corps is one aspect of a wider Communication Analysis and Planning (CAP) project tagged ‘UWI WJC Forging New Paths in Education’. The project is being executed by a group of final-year Caribbean Media and Communications (Carimac) students and aims to further integrate the five-year-old Western Jamaica campus into the community.

“Our ambassadors will advocate on behalf of the WJC with the business community, their peers and staff; delivering lectures in their field of expertise at least once per year, while being emissaries of the campus locally and internationally,” explained Dr Luz Longsworth, campus director.

Dr Longsworth expressed hope that through their advocacy, there will be increased public awareness of the offerings at the institution resulting in the growth of student population. The campus currently has 800 students enrolled, but is projecting an increase to 2,000 students within the next two years.

According to Dr Longsworth, each ambassador was carefully selected and all have a proven track record of commendable contribution to nation building. They will act as advocates for the WJC for a period of two years.

The 12, drawn from the parishes of St James, Hanover, Westmoreland, and St Elizabeth, include Caribbean Producers Jamaica Limited’s Mark Hart; Rainforest Seafood’s Ernest Grant; Everton Anderson of the National Health Fund; Sandals Resorts and Jamaica Observer Deputy Chairman Adam Stewart; Custos of Westmoreland Father Hartley Perrin; ear, nose and throat specialist Dr Barbara Salmon-Grandison; and Round Hill Hotel and Villas’ Omar Robinson.

Completing the impressive list are Howard Ward of Ward Power Tools; Hampton High School Principal Heather Murray, Island Outsourcers’ Yoni Epstein, Exclusive Holidays’, Fred Smith and Governor Elect of the Eastern Canada and the Caribbean, Kiwanis International, Hope Markes.

This is Ambassador Vasciannie’s first official trip to Jamaica since he took office in Washington, DC, last June.

Ambassador Stephen Vasciannie, who is Jamaica’s permanent representative to the Organisation of American States (OAS), served as chairman of the organisation’s Permanent Council between July and September 2012.

He has served as Professor of International Law and Head of the Department of Government at the UWI, Mona; member of the United Nations International Law Commission (Geneva), member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee (Rio de Janeiro), and as principal of the Norman Manley Law School.

Ambassador Vasciannie has also worked as a deputy solicitor general in the Attorney General’s Chambers and as chairman of the Air Policy Committee of the Jamaican Government.

He joined the UWI staff in 1994, after working as a lawyer at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, and as a legal adviser at the United Nations. He has also worked as a Research Fellow in International Law at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.