LIME Saint Lucia General Manager, Chris Williams, flanked by One Caribbean Television stars Jeanille Bonterre, Joey Stevens and Bob The Parrot
“Hey, it’s the guy with the parrot.” Since 2005, when Philadelphia station WSEE started doing weather updates for the Caribbean, Joey Stevens and his sidekick, Bob The Parrot, have been growing their fan base in the region.
Now with One Caribbean Television, channel 103 on LIME TV, Joey is instantly recognisable to hundreds of thousands of fans in Saint Lucia, the Caribbean and the regional diaspora.
The same is true of Jeanille Bonterre, host of Island Xclusive on One Caribbean Television, formerly known as Empress Jeanille, the Trinidad & Tobago native is known in the Caribbean and beyond for presenting the region’s people, music, festivals, food and other exciting evens to her audience in an energetic, uptempo package.
Joey, Jeanille (and Bob) visited Saint Lucia this week with a camera crew, at the invitation of the island’s and region’s leading telecommunications service provider, LIME. One Caribbean and LIME teamed up to offer support to the Saint Lucia Red Cross as it redoubles its efforts to provide assistance to residents in communities that were affected by heavy rains and devastating floods caused by the trough that struck the island on Christmas Eve.
Saint Lucia Red Cross Disaster Coordinator Hubert Pierre, Joey Stevens and Brian Lilly of One Caribbean Television examine the scene of a fire on the Red Cross compound
LIME invited the One Caribbean Television team to St Lucia to help with the relief effort as part of the company’s continuing drive to drum up support for organizations that have been providing relief services to the impacted communities. One Caribbean has a reach of over 1 million viewers in the Caribbean and the United States.
The One Caribbean team met with and interviewed LIME colleagues, officials from the National Emergency Management Organisation and Red Cross, acting Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Port Services and Transport, Philip J Pierre and a number of community disaster response coordinators. Excerpts of the video footage will be aired on local primetime news broadcasts and other media outlets in the Caribbean and the diaspora. A standalone feature will also be aired on One Caribbean.
“Together with LIME, we are working to boost public support for the relief effort locally and internationally, as there still many people in various parts of the world who are not aware of the difficulties and suffering caused by the storm,” said Joey. “We are proud to support the Red Cross in their relief efforts and encourage others to commit to this effort.”
“We are proud to partner with One Caribbean for this worthy cause,” said Chris Williams, LIME Saint Lucia General Manager. “This disaster affected hundreds of families, many of whom still face hardships. We are passionate about this initiaitive and we’re very happy to use our global connections to assist in whatever way we can. It’s the right thing to do.”
Following the passage of the Christmas Eve trough LIME arranged for the distribution of several hundred cases of bottled water to residents in Bexon, Canaries, Anse La Raye and Soufriere.
Meanwhile, the Saint Lucia Red Cross continues to appeal to members of the public on island and elsewhere to assist by contributing to a relief fund set up by the Red Cross to help the storm victims. Donations can be made at FirstCaribbean Bank 2645392.