KINGSTON, Jamaica – Corporate, public-sector entities and civil society groups are being encouraged to participate in the National Labour Day Project on Highway 2000.

Volunteers are being asked to register with the National Labour Day Secretariat in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport by sending an email to labourday@mcges.gov.jm or calling 876-499-1090 or 876-398-4880.

Labour Day will be observed on Tuesday, May 23 under the theme ‘Plant a Tree for Life – Promoting Climate Change Mitigation, Food Security and Road Safety’.

The tree-planting exercise will take place in the vicinity of Hartlands Road in Old Harbour, St Catherine, beginning at 7:00 am.

Entry to the work site will be via Hartlands Road, entering from Old Harbour Road. There will be no access from the highway.

Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia Grange, said that Corporate Jamaica, schools and civil society groups are being targeted to participate in the project.

Grange explained that the tree-planting activity will be arranged in plots of approximately half hectare in size.

“Corporate entities with large groups, 50 or more, will be assigned to a plot and will be able to brand their plot for the day,” she said, adding that groups will be able to use feather banners and provide hospitality for their volunteers.

“We will be able to embrace large numbers of persons because we are planting 10,000 trees at that location. We are inviting volunteers,” she noted.

Grange said that the National Project will be led by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, portfolio ministers and Leader of the Opposition, Mark Golding.

Project Director for the Secretariat for Commemorative Activities in the ministry, Lenford Salmon, who spoke at the Think Tank, said it is an opportunity for groups and corporate entities to play an integral part in Labour Day.

“If you are a large corporate group, a staff of 50, 60, 70, you can mobilise your staff, you can brand them, you can put up feather banners around plots, you get your own publicity that you are giving back to this national effort,” he pointed out.

He noted that while the target is to plant 10,000 trees along Highway 2000 “we know that we can plant more… the more hands we have on deck is the easier it will be”.

“Mobilise your staff. Register with us. We have the trees available, so we just want you to be on hand for the national project,” he implored.

Meanwhile, Grange is calling on Jamaicans to plant trees on Labour Day. She said that the Forestry Department as well as the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will make thousands of trees available to organisations and the public.

“This will include the popular trees grown in each parish,” she pointed out.

The focus for Labour Day 2023 was born out of the Forestry Department’s National Tree initiative to plant three million trees in three years.

Labour Day was launched on May 2, 2023 by Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

-JIS