|
| |
Contact:
Rose Marie Harris
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 – ‘Saint Lucians and Standards—Paving the way
to a safer, healthier and more productive society’, this is the theme that the
Saint Lucia Bureau of Standards, the SLBS, is promoting as it observes World
Standards Day this year. World Standards Day is celebrated on October 14th but
the SLBS will be dedicating the entire month to highlighting standards and their
impact on the daily life of Saint Lucians. The international theme for World
Standards Day is ‘Standards and the Citizen—Contributing to Society’ but this
has been amended to the local theme in order to encourage Saint Lucians to begin
to identify more readily with standards.
Most, if not all, daily activities are affected by standards which ensure that a
wide and diverse range of products and services used are safe and reliable.
Everyday products such as toothpaste, soap, household cleaners and other
necessities that make life comfortable and healthy must conform to standards.
However, many people do not think about the critical role that standards play in
their daily lives nor how they as consumers can help to develop and safeguard
those standards. This is why for this year’s observance of World Standards Day,
the SLBS has decided to focus on Saint Lucians themselves as integral players in
the process of standardization and in the promotion of standards.
With this objective in mind, the SLBS’ activities this year will emphasise the
relationship between standards and Saint Lucians’ everyday lives. The SLBS’
annual debating competition on Wednesday, October 10 will serve as a launching
pad when the debating teams from Mabouya Valley and Anse-la-Raye will argue the
topic, ‘The quality of daily life is not seriously affected by the absence of
standards in a society’. The event will take place at the National Cultural
Centre at 10:00 a.m. and will be carried live on Radio Saint Lucia. The SLBS
will also be launching a series of public service advertisements (PSAs) for
radio and television during the week of October 14. The PSAs are animated and
designed to convey the message about the impact of standards in a humorous and
accessible way. Visits to selected schools across the island will also be
conducted and two mini-exhibitions are to be mounted at Super J supermarkets in
Rodney Bay and Vieux Fort. Throughout the month of October, radio and television
interview programmes will be tackling and explaining all the issues surrounding
standards and the significant but little understood role that they play in the
lives of Saint Lucians.
|
