Vincentian journalist, Kenton X. Chance will go to the United States this month as the latest Eastern Caribbean candidate of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP).
Chance is the Executive Editor of I-Witness News in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. He will take part in a three-week, multi-regional project on promoting civil society through new media with 22 other candidates from around the world. United by their professional pursuits, the participants are a diverse group, hailing from as far as Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Russia, Sudan, and Egypt. The programme offers the opportunity for this varied group to network with professional counterparts (both U.S. and international) in order to increase information sharing.
Chance’s participation in the programme will provide him with the opportunity to examine a variety of new media and social networking tools. In addition, Chance, along with his colleagues, will explore citizens’ rights and responsibilities in civil society in the U.S., learn how new media can be used to promote transparency and accountability in the public and private sectors, and understand how to encourage citizens to become discerning consumers of online content. The programme, which begins on March 24, will include travel to at least six cities across the United States, beginning formally in Washington, DC. The national itinerary will also include stops in New York, New York; travel in smaller groups on city splits to Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Pensacola, Florida; Sacramento, California, and will conclude in San Francisco, California on April 11.
The IVLP is the Department of State’s premier, professional exchange programme. The program brings together emerging leaders in their respective professions to learn how U.S. experts in that profession operate and to share best practices with the other programme candidates who hail from the same region and across the globe.
Congrats kenton. You have the potential to go very far, hence the reason I identified you months ago as a member of my dream cabinet.
Know that I am not the only one watching you and following you.
Congratulations Kenton, I am sure most people who read this article do not realise that IVLP selects people from professions based on a persons current and emerging leadership within their profession from across the world to come to the United States on the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) to meet with professional counterparts and visit U.S. public and private sector organizations related to their field of interest.
For Kenton to be selected is indeed a great honour for him and its a great honour for Vincentians, that such a hardworking professional young man has been selected from among us is a positive among so much negativity of today.
I am sure that the US has recognised that Kenton X. Chance is not just an emerging journalist, he is a scholar and graduate in his chosen profession, and is in fact currently a leader in his profession. They do not just choose anyone, they are very selective who they invite.
Well done Kenton, well done and thank you for being a real Vincentian patriot.
Best wishes
Peter
Make SVG proud my brother. Congrats!
Congrats Kenton. Just be alert and do not be used unknowingly in support of imperial designs. Inventing reality must never happen. You are a gem in our nation. Keep it just so.
Fitz, what do you mean by “…do not be used unknowingly in support of imperial designs”.
Are you saying “something in the mortar beside’s the pestle”. Is this “leadership program” an instrument of American foreign policy?
Are we to be believe, that Kenton “unknowingly” would now become an agent of US Imperialism… furthering the US’s foreign policy abroad, and acting in accordance with the wishes of the US. No way!
I feel so sorry for FITZ, he has to sully this which should be a celebration, by issuing Kenton with a warning in case he is enlisted by the Americans. Fitz seems to be caught in the old Soviet Union time warp.
Fitz why not send a political officer with him, you know the way the Cubans do when workers and Cubans come to SVG.
What an insult to bring to this celebration of excellence and achievement.
Hmm! Peter Binose, you seem rather elated by this turn of events. Have you been there already? And is this why you are, the way you are… No? Yes! I thought so.