标签： Grenada

Grenada is gearing up to host its annual Sandals National Learn to Swim Week between July 6 and 10, capping off a foundational instructor upskilling program that aims to raise the bar for swimming education across the island nation, including its smaller sister islands Carriacou and Petite Martinique. This year’s event brings a major upgrade to local swim instruction: for the first time, Grenadian instructors have completed the internationally accredited Discover Water Swim Instructor Course developed by global governing body World Aquatics.

The rollout of the program traces back to earlier this year, when the Grenada Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) sponsored Tara Baksh, Grenada’s newly appointed national Discover Water lead, to attend a specialized training conference in Aruba. Baksh returned with full certification to deliver the World Aquatics-endorsed curriculum to local instructors, marking the first time the standardized program has been brought to the country.

Unlike traditional training that focuses heavily on stroke technique, the Discover Water program takes a holistic approach to building capable, confident swimmers. Beyond core swimming skills, the curriculum trains instructors to embed water safety, survival protocols, critical decision-making in aquatic environments, and confidence-building into every lesson. All participating instructors also completed full CPR certification as part of the training. The program emphasizes modern, child-centered teaching methods designed to make lessons more engaging, fun, and effective for young learners.

Reflecting on the recent training sessions for local instructors, Baksh highlighted the high level of engagement among participants. “The instructors were engaged, eager to learn, and willing to participate both verbally and practically. I felt I was able to demonstrate how to incorporate fun into every lesson while still teaching children the core swimming skills they need,” Baksh said. She noted that while local instructors already had foundational teaching experience, the program added critical new tools to their practice: “This course has provided them with valuable tools for communicating more effectively with younger swimmers, so they understand what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how to think critically and solve problems in the water.”

Looking forward, Baksh and local swimming advocates have ambitious plans to embed this global training standard into Grenada’s national swimming ecosystem. She aims to make the Discover Water certification a permanent core requirement for all new swim instructors in the country, through ongoing collaboration with GASA and local non-profit Get Grenada Swimming. Longer-term goals include expanding the child-centered teaching methods to primary schools and after-school programs across all three islands.

This year’s Sandals National Learn to Swim Week will run from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. daily across 15 different locations spanning Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique. The event is coordinated by Get Grenada Swimming in partnership with Sandals Grenada, aligned with the organization’s long-running mission to ensure every child in Grenada has access to free swimming training, an essential life-saving skill. For families unable to join during the official event week, additional follow-up lessons will be offered between July 13 and 24 at six participating locations: Grand Anse, Grand Mal, Gouyave, St Mark, Sauteurs, and Grenada Marine in Corinth. These extended sessions are run in partnership with the Ministry of Sports’ Holiday Recreation Programme.

With a cohort of newly certified instructors, evidence-based global teaching methods, and expanded access across the country, 2025’s Learn to Swim Week is positioned to be the most impactful iteration of the event to date. All lessons offered during the initiative are completely free for participants. Families interested in registering their children can sign up through the official Get Grenada Swimming website at www.getgrenadaswimming.com, or direct questions to the event hotline at 404-5237.

The 2026 International Day of Cooperatives will be marked across the globe on Saturday, July 4, with this year’s campaign centered on the powerful theme “Cooperatives for a Peaceful World.”

This annual global observance has a deep-rooted history stretching back more than 100 years, earning official United Nations recognition in 1995. It was established to shine a spotlight on the unique and far-reaching contributions cooperative enterprises make to global peacebuilding, social cohesion, and inclusive sustainable development. Beyond celebration, the day functions as a critical global platform to boost public understanding of how cooperative models strengthen local communities and drive equitable economic growth that benefits all members of society, rather than just a select few.

The 2026 theme is intentionally aligned with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16, which calls for Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions. The framework underscores a core truth: lasting peace can only take root where fairness, equal access to opportunity, and widespread social trust are prioritized. Cooperatives are uniquely positioned to cultivate these foundational conditions, through their structure that ensures broad sharing of economic gains, builds community resilience in the face of crisis, and encourages cross-group collaboration that bridges divides along ethnic, economic, and social lines.

Across sectors, cooperative models have delivered tangible, life-changing impact around the world. Agricultural cooperatives have boosted food security by connecting smallholder farmers to resources and markets, lifting rural livelihoods out of poverty. Community-focused credit unions have expanded affordable access to financial services for groups historically excluded from traditional banking systems. Worker-owned cooperative enterprises have created stable, dignified employment that gives working people direct agency over their labor and working conditions.

In Grenada, local organizers are preparing a full slate of community-focused events to mark the occasion. The Grenada Co-operative League Ltd (GCLL) has partnered with the country’s Department of the Co-operatives to roll out a series of public engagement activities. The centerpiece of the local calendar is Co-operative Fair 2.0, set to take place on Friday, July 3 – one day ahead of the official global observance – at the Esplanade Mall Courtyard in St George’s, running from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. At the fair, dozens of local cooperatives will set up displays to demonstrate how core cooperative values – including voluntary open membership, democratic member control, and a prioritization of community well-being – translate into tangible, positive impact for Grenada’s residents.

This report was published by NOW Grenada, which notes that it is not responsible for the opinions, statements, or third-party media content shared by contributors to the outlet. Readers are invited to flag any abusive content via the outlet’s official reporting channel.

On Sunday, June 28, every single parish across the Caribbean island nation of Grenada came together for the first National Spice Replanting Day, a nationwide collective effort that brought hundreds of volunteers together to nurture and reinforce the country’s world-famous spice agricultural legacy.

Organized as a flagship community initiative under the banner of Grenada Diaspora Homecoming 2026, the event drew participation from a diverse cross-section of the population: local residents, Grenadian nationals returning from overseas, grassroots community groups, and independent volunteers all joined forces for a shared mission rooted in national pride, agricultural renewal, and collective environmental stewardship. Framed around the theme “From Roots to Legacy”, the initiative was designed to strengthen Grenada’s centuries-old agricultural heritage while cementing the country’s beloved global nickname as the “Spice Isle” for future generations.

Across all participating communities, volunteers spent the day working side-by-side to plant native spice saplings, contributing to a national strategy to boost domestic agriculture, restore declining spice crop populations, and honor the centuries-deep connection between Grenada’s land, its people, and its cultural identity.

Senator Roderick St Clair, speaking on behalf of event organizers, highlighted that the unprecedented full-parish turnout underscored both the power of collective community action and the critical importance of protecting Grenada’s distinct agricultural identity. “National Spice Replanting Day was far more than just a routine tree-planting exercise,” St Clair explained. “It was a public declaration of shared national responsibility. Every volunteer who showed up across every parish, who put their hands into Grenada’s soil, did more than just plant trees. They helped secure a legacy that is woven into the very fabric of Grenadian life: our rural communities, our centuries-long agricultural history, and our core national identity.”

Beyond its agricultural and environmental goals, the event also served as a key test of the core mission of the Grenada Diaspora Homecoming 2026, an initiative designed to re-connect Grenadians living overseas with their home country and create meaningful opportunities for them to contribute to national development. Organizers emphasized that the full islandwide participation perfectly embodied the spirit of the Homecoming project, which centers on five core pillars: reconnection, collective contribution, cultural celebration, community building, and shared national purpose.

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A Caribbean-based firm called By The Waterfall Inc., located in Grand Bras, St Andrew, Grenada, has publicly posted an open employment vacancy for the full-time position of Housekeeper. One core non-negotiable requirement for all candidates applying to the role is proficiency in the Ukrainian language, a specification that stands out in Caribbean regional hiring listings.

Interested individuals who meet the language and role requirements are instructed to submit their formal applications exclusively via email to the address [email protected]. The company has set a firm application deadline of 22 July 2026, meaning all submission materials must be received by the hiring team before this date to be considered for the position.

As the hosting platform for the job posting, NOW Grenada has issued a standard content disclaimer: the platform is not liable for the views, statements, or any third-party contributed content published through its classified listings. The portal also notes that users can flag any inappropriate or abusive content associated with the posting through a dedicated reporting channel on the site.

For centuries, Caribbean migration has reshaped global communities, with millions of Caribbean-born people building new lives across North America, Europe, and beyond while retaining deep cultural and property ties to their home islands. What once operated as an informal, trust-based arrangement for cross-border family assets, however, has grown increasingly complex in the modern era of regulatory compliance, according to Kevon K K Charles, a Grenada-based attorney with dual admission to practice in Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago.

Charles, who specializes in estate law, notes that many of the most complicated estate cases he handles start with a deceptively simple line: All of the estate’s beneficiaries live outside of the country where the assets are held. This pattern is nothing new: generations of Caribbean families have seen children leave the islands for opportunities abroad, settling in New York, Toronto, London, Trinidad, and other destinations, while family property and assets remain in the home jurisdiction, such as Grenada. But when a family member passes away, what was once uncomplicated shared family property becomes an inheritance matter spanning multiple legal systems, regulatory regimes, and financial institutions.

“One of the Caribbean’s greatest exports has always been its people,” Charles explains. Today, it is extremely common for an estate to hold property in one Caribbean jurisdiction, have beneficiaries residing in a second country, and manage assets through financial institutions based in a third. Unlike decades past, modern estate administration does not stop at a country’s border; legal teams must navigate conflicting local laws, differing banking requirements, and layered global compliance standards all within a single inheritance case.

Locating dispersed beneficiaries is rarely the hardest part of the process, Charles stresses. The biggest challenge comes from meeting the strict verification requirements set by financial institutions and legal bodies that control access to the deceased’s assets. Banks routinely demand certified government-issued identification, proof of permanent address, detailed tax information, and additional anti-fraud verification before releasing any funds to foreign-based beneficiaries. Attorneys working on the case often must obtain apostilled authenticated documents or formal grants of representation recognized in multiple countries. Even transferring real estate requires compliance with property laws in all involved jurisdictions, turning what should be a private family matter into a formal international transaction.

Charles says one of the most frequent questions he receives from families is equally straightforward: If my brother lives in Canada, why can’t we just transfer his share of the inheritance directly to him? Legally, the transfer may be permitted, but practically, large cross-border transfers trigger automatic additional scrutiny from global financial institutions, especially when the recipient has no prior relationship with the sending bank or the purpose of the transfer is not immediately clear. This does not mean the transfer is blocked entirely, Charles clarifies, but it does mean families must follow a lengthy, multi-step process to complete the transaction.

A major shift from past generations is the new centrality of formal documentation. While mid-20th century Caribbean estate matters relied heavily on interpersonal trust within families, modern inheritance requires extensive paperwork to move forward. Death certificates, formal grants of representation, government-issued identification, proof of address, source of funds verifications, and tax declarations – documents that were once considered secondary are now core to processing an estate efficiently.

From his daily practice handling multi-jurisdictional estates, Charles has observed that inheritance law still formally defines who is entitled to receive a deceased’s assets. But modern global compliance frameworks ultimately dictate when and how those beneficiaries will actually gain access to their lawful inheritance. As he notes, the pattern of Caribbean migration created this new landscape: the grandparents of current families left the Caribbean seeking opportunity abroad, built wealth in their new host countries, and retained property and roots back in their home islands. Today, the estates they leave behind span oceans, not just islands, with beneficiaries scattered across multiple countries and assets split between jurisdictions to match.

This analysis forms part of a ongoing series examining the shifting relationship between wealth, property ownership, and regulatory compliance across the Caribbean. NOW Grenada notes it is not responsible for the opinions or content shared by contributing writers, and invites readers to report any abusive content through official platform channels.