CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC) — St Lucia has announced the launch of a campaign that is aimed at increasing visibility and understanding of the 15-member regional integration movement, Caricom.

The Regional Integration Unit (RIU) in the Office of the Prime Minister said it is collaborating with the Guyana-based Caribbean Community (Caricom) Secretariat in the “I AM CARICOM’ communications campaign here.

It said the initiative also “seeks to engage and assist citizens of the Community to locate themselves within the Caricom construct – institutions, governance structure, policies and plans, and to take ownership and participate fully in the regional integration development agenda”.

The ‘I AM CARICOM’ initiative emanated from a meeting of the Caricom Committee of Ambassadors, where it was agreed that as part of the process for the development of the Community’s Strategic Plan the Secretariat needed to re-engage the Caribbean population.

“This Strategic Plan will succeed the first Community Strategic Plan 2015-2019, and is aimed at defining the direction of the Community over the Plan’s horizon, keeping implementing partners focused, and laying-out the strategies to secure the Community’s future in a dynamic and often challenging global environment.”

The RIU said that the commemoration of Caricom Day on July 6 here serves as an ideal opportunity to highlight the commencement of the ‘I AM CARICOM’ communications campaign and that it would be undertaking a host of public education activities celebrate and reinforce the achievements on the Organisation and its institutions and to inform on the work that they continue to do.

These activities include the launch of the ‘I AM CARICOM’ photo frame for social media, interviews with the island’s Ambassador to Caricom as well as online games and quizzes and the development and implementation of the Community Strategic Plan.

The RIU said that these will be rolled out over the coming months.