Minister of Finance and Planning, Audley Shaw, has encouraged Jamaicans in Washington to deepen their engagement with Jamaica and to meaningfully assist the island's economic reform and growth agenda.

The Minister's appeal came during an address to a capacity audience at the Embassy of Jamaica in Washington on Friday (Oct. 19), where he stressed the importance of the Jamaican Diaspora in aiding Jamaica's economic development and providing critical skills essential to the country's progress.

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Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Dr. Kenneth Baugh, has said that the government was seeking to actively engage Jamaicans in the Diaspora in the process of economic growth and development.

Addressing scores of exhibitors, investors and participants at the recent Jamaican Diaspora Investment Conference and Trade Exposition in New Jersey, Minister Baugh said that the government's policy of engagement with the Diaspora was more than just remittances.

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An exhibition entitled "Discovering Rastafari!" charts the origins of the Rastafari culture in colonial Jamaica and its subsequent development into a multilingual movement throughout the African Diaspora and the world was opened to the public at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. on Friday, November 2nd.

The exhibition uses artifacts, rare photographs and ephemera to explore the emergence and development of the movement in Jamaica, taking viewers beyond the popular Jamaican music known as reggae to the deeper roots of the Rastafari culture.

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