Online component of Independence celebrations launched

THE YEAR LONG Independence celebrations have taken to the online platform with the launch of the official 50Barbados website and the I Pledge programme.

The website and social media campaign officially kicked off yesterday at the Baobab Towers, Warrens, St Michael when Minister of Foreign Affairs and chair of the 50th Anniversary of Independence Celebrations Coordinating Committee, Senator Maxine McClean gave the main address for what she described as an “iconic event”.

“The iconic event I Pledge was conceptualised by one of our partners, the Barbados Private Sector Association in an effort to mobilise Barbadians to set goals and pursue them over the year,” McClean said.

“The pledges will provide the opportunity to focus on the Prime Minister’s call for the 50th anniversary of Independence of celebrations to reclaim those features of Barbadian life which we have lost and need to reclaim, discarding those things which are negatively affecting society and holding on to those features for which we have not lost but we need to retain at all cost,” she added.

This pledge, she explained, could either be done electronically by social media or via several pledge books which were to be placed across the country at strategic locations.

This social media strategy was centred around the 50Barbados website which was designed by Caribbean 360 and also had several features all centred around Barbadian life.

LINK: Barbados50 Website

McClean, director of the National HIV/AIDS Commission Jacqueline Wiltshire and Signia Financial chief executive officer Paul Ashby made the first pledges to the Facebook page and the pledge book.

They were joined by several children from Eden Lodge and West Terrace Primary Schools who made their own pledges. (AD)