The COVID Diaspora...Options when America sneezes

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For Steven and the countless others who sought new life and opportunities to shape a diaspora beyond.

Deeply saddened by the passing today of yet another friend and cultural worker for the diaspora.

While we hold on to our hearts and hopes for friends and relatives on the frontline, and the hot zones of the Novel Corona Virus, it becomes clearer that building resilience in the Post Pandemic Planet requires radical and revolutionary shifts in not just thought but action in reshaping our societies, our politics, our economies and our lifestyles.

They left for better lives... Many of those opportunities for a better life sought through the diaspora are no longer available, and would most likely continue to shrink, as the Pandemic engulfs more and more in a macabre assertion of the alterego of the globe’s skrinking borders.
Dr Kris Rampersad – Sustainable Development Educator on the Post Pandemic Planet www.krisrampersad.com

Join the Webinar: Exploring Economic Options for Tourism, Agriculture and Gastronomy.

The Webinar on Strategies and solutions for sustainable cultural and food tourism from the World Region of Gastronomy Platform will take place on DATE: Wednesday 29 July 2020 at 11.00h (Caribbean); 17.00h (CET) through the GOTOMEETING LINK: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/245466397

Covid 19 Heritage Tourism Culinary Culture Opportunities — Free Webinar on building COVID socio-economic resilience see more in link here

Steven, who joined the gloCal Knowledge Pot LiTTribute to the Americas to draw together the combined resources and experiences of the region, is among hundreds in the Caribbean American diaspora who have fallen to the scourge. They left, many reluctantly, small island and shores of limited opportunities in search of better lives for themselves and their families. Many of those opportunities are no longer available, and would most likely continue to shrink, as the Pandemic engulfs more and more in a macabre dance on the globe’s skrinking borders.

Dr Kris Rampersad stage LiTTribute to the Americas — The Diaspora Connection Caribbean Americas the World. More in Link here

If anything, the Pandemic has, like nothing else, brought home the close interconnections of the global village. As the global fatalities climb beyond 650k, with more than 16 million, each loss is not just a statistic, not just loss of an economic contributor, a son father, husband, friend. Each loss shrinks our global village as we are mandated to build resilience of the localised village. Couched between the two hotzones – America and Brazil, the Caribbean’s historical experience at the mercy of global dynamics also looms into focus.

Climbing Statistics and Fatalities from the Novel Corona Virus pose tremendous challenges to socio-economic recovery efforts.

The COVID Diaspora has exposed the vulnerability of the Global Village. As friends and relatives say farewell to one, then another, of the Pandemic’s victims, we are made more and more aware of the need for radical shifts in not just behaviour, but also thinking, conceptualising and planning for the Post Pandemic Planet. Even with a vaccine, for which there seems to be some glimmer of hope though not in the near future, the lessons of our global vulnerability find new contexts. As many wait for return to norms and lifestyles, we become exceedingly conscious that many of the lifestyles we celebrated as achivements of our civilisation have become but fodder for the Novel Corona Virus voracious appetite.