KINGSTON, Jamaica — Jamaican-born Anglican bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin has called for Jamaicans locally and overseas to build a single community that will further strengthen the country’s resilience and amplify its voice in the world.

The Montego Bay native was delivering the sermon at the official service held at the Calvary Baptist Church in St James to mark the start of the 11th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference, which is being staged under the theme, “Diaspora Partnerships: Re-Building a More Resilient Jamaica”.

Pointing to the national anthem and national pledge, Hudson-Wilkin underscored that the ingredients to a more resilient Jamaica are embedded in these civic symbols and the mission entrusted to the Jamaican people.

“Both the anthem and pledge act as a reminder of who we are as a people— not just any people, but a resilient people,” she said. “A people who might be considered by many in the first world as little people, but you know the saying, ‘We little but we tallawah’— we might be small, but we are strong.”

She reminded congregants that Jamaica is renowned for its many achievements across sectors, including culture and sports, as well as its advocacy.

Referencing Deuteronomy eight, where God reminds the children of Israel about all they had endured and overcame on their journey to the “Promised Land”, Hudson-Wilkin cautioned Jamaicans that there is a danger in not remembering who they are and what the country’s heroes and their foreparents had accomplished.

“They (Israelites) were no longer being enslaved,” she explained. “The potential for prosperity was real, but they were in danger of forgetting how they came to be in the positions that they found themselves in. They needed to pause to reflect.”

“We too need to pause to reflect,” Hudson-Wilkin said, adding that the conference would provide an opportunity to contemplate “the distance we have travelled, the journey we have been on”, and to remember that God had similarly led Jamaicans through difficult times.

That means, as a religious country, faith remains essential to building resilience, she also emphasised.

The bishop said building a more resilient Jamaica requires Jamaicans to look back, remain connected and work in an organised fashion to build a stronger community of its six million people (three million locally and three million overseas) to achieve greater impact.

At the same time, she noted that Jamaica is not disconnected from the global community and has been vested with a mission to “advance the welfare of the whole human race”. Therefore, they should also band together and demonstrate care for those facing injustice in Jamaica and in other regions across the world.

“There is a South African word called ‘ubuntu’, which means ‘I am because you are’… In other words, all our lives are inextricably linked together— we are a family, we are a people, we are a community, we are a nation, we are part of the human race,” Hudson-Wilkin reminded her congregation of diasporans, local Jamaicans, corporate sponsors and government officials.

“And it means, therefore, that we must speak out against injustices, wherever we see it,” she continued.

“We have to care about each other, and not just who we can see. We have to care about what’s happening in Cuba… We’ve got to care about what’s happening in Haiti, about what’s happening in the [Democratic] Republic of Congo. We’ve got to care about what’s happening in Sudan, the Middle East. Why? Because we share a common humanity,” she emphasised.

“Let us stick to our national pledge as we seek to build a more resilient Jamaica,” she said, as she recited its charge to Jamaicans again.

The church service was attended by conference delegates, legacy sponsors and government officials, including Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith and her Minister of State, Alando Terrelonge, as well as Earl Jarrett, chief executive officer of The Jamaica National Group, who is also co-chair of the conference.

The 11th Jamaica Diaspora Conference will continue Monday, June 15 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre and conclude on Thursday, June 18 with a day of service.