Ceteris Paribus or Not: Joe Issa Says As Jamaicans We Are Not a Bad People Urging “Big Up Uno Self!”

In a New Year’s interview about his reflections of 2016, the crime issue and how it portrays and impacts the country, popular Ocho Rios business leader Joe Issa, has said that despite the mayhem being caused by an insignificant yet impactful minority, Jamaica is not a bad country, even when all things are not equal.

“Jamaica is revered throughout the world – our people, culture, music and now sporting prowess; yet, so many of us think we are of the worst kind; well, I don’t think so. Big up Jamaica!

“Others can see it, yet so many of us don’t,” Issa says, referencing the experience of a Canadian policeman, from a force which the JCF has hosted here and was tipped to offer assistance, noting that “he would be acquainted with our crime issue, especially since it’s not his first visit to the island along with his wife.”

Citing a February 7, 2007 Letter of the Day in The Gleaner titled, “An open letter to Montego Bay: Jamaica - a paradise found”, Issa pokes: “Wait till you get to that part when he said, ‘He asked nothing for this, and we were treated to a tremendous day trip. Wayne should be commended for his pride in Jamaica and its people’, to which Issa responds, “That’s the typical Jamaican, taking tourists out and giving them a nice time just for pleasure and not gain.”

Considered in local newspapers as a tourism guru having developed the reputation as a turnaround manager in his family’s SuperClubs chain of all-inclusive resorts which he run and won several local and international awards in the process, analysts say Issa is best poised to know how visitors characterize their vacation experience in Jamaica.

“In my time the vast majority of visitors say they enjoyed their stay here and love the people, cuisine, service, entertainment and the beach, among others, highlighting special experience of acts of Jamaican kindness which, I know is within us to exercise,” says Issa who, through Cool Charities, a subsidiary of his Cool Group is giving back to communities in the form of education of disadvantaged children.

Noting that the decades-old letter to the Gleaner editor could have been written today, Issa cites a part which brings out the true Jamaican even when things are far from equal. In that part the visitor was describing the good times he was having on the Hip Strip where he was staying on his second visit.

 “I met a young man named David, who had one leg. We talked like old friends one morning, early, when I went for my walk. Again, he asked for nothing, only my company. I learned about his country and he about mine. Trust me, I am not naive. I know the difference between whether I am being hustled or not.”

Issa hastens further to get to the end of the letter, stating “it’s the best part…it puts everything into perspective.”

“Much is sometimes made of Jamaica’s struggles with violence. Some people here in Canada even asked us why we would take the risk of vacationing in Jamaica. Certainly January was a difficult month for violence.

“My wife and I have travelled extensively in the world. The answer is this: some of the finest people I have ever met, anywhere, were in Jamaica. The kindness, the genuine nature of their personalities, the strong spiritual strength that was exuded by everything that they did, made them such a pleasure to be associated with.

“Reading the Gleaner every day, with the letters and editorials, it was obvious that Jamaica abounds with persons of this sort – fine, upstanding people who only want the best for their country and countrymen and women.

 “The struggles are there, to be sure. Nuisance drug dealers abound, which takes away from the beauty of the city. Violence, however, encapsulated within small areas, cannot be tolerated. Poverty rears its head often.

“Yet, the beauty of Jamaica and especially its people overwhelms all of that. I speak as a police officer of 21 years service here in Canada, who has seen much. My wife is a nurse with similar years of service. We could likely be accused at times of being jaded by what we have seen; yet we see the beauty in our own city and nation, every day.

“Jamaica is a paradise – and not a paradise lost, but found. We will be back soon,” says Curtis Kemp from Regina, Canada, Via Go-Jamaica

For Health’s Sake Let’s Increase Economic Growth – Joe Issa

Healthy Lifestyle enthusiast and philanthropist Joe Issa, has said that the general health of a nation and in particular, its under-five-year-olds should serve as a warning of how well it will fare socially and economically in the long term and the future, and Jamaica is no exception.

“When you look at health trends all over the world it is frightening to realize how badly low income countries like Jamaica are doing relative to high income countries in reducing the prevalence rate of stunting, underweight and overweight,” says Issa, pointing out that the gap between high and low income countries is too wide and should be narrowed with higher social and economic growth.

Issa, who volunteers books, computers and even air condition units to schools in St. Mary and St. Ann, where he is a past president of the chamber of commerce, says the opportunity cost of a sick workforce is massive loss of production and miss-opportunity for economic growth, to say nothing of the burden on the health sector and tax payers. “When we see the national stunting rate decreasing we know then that conditions in the socio-economy are improving.”

According to World Health Organization (WHO), stunted growth, which means a low height-for-age “reflects a process of failure to reach linear growth potential as a result of suboptimal health and/or nutritional conditions.”

Such conditions are shown to be generally associated with poor social and economic conditions in the population and “increased risk of frequent and early exposure to adverse conditions such as illness and/or inappropriate feeding practices.”

The data showed that worldwide variation of the prevalence of low height-for-age is considerable, ranging from 5% to 65% among the less developed countries

Between 1990 and 2014 child malnutrition indicators for stunting, showed a reduction in the number of children affected, from about 255 million to 159 million, with the prevalence rate reducing from 41% to 26%.

Similarly, underweight children fell from nearly 161 million in 1990 to 95 million in 2014, while the prevalence rate reduced from 25% to 16% over the period. However, overweight children which numbered 31 million in 1990 has increased to 41 million in 2014, with the percentage prevalence increasing from 6% to 7% during the time period.

The picture is even more unfavourable when it comes to stunting among children under five years old, with low income groups having a higher prevalence rate than high income groups, as well as a relatively smaller decline in the rate over a 24-year period. The prevalence rate for low income groups was 54.6% in 1990 compared with 32.6% for high income groups.

Also, whereas the prevalence rate for the low income groups fell to 37.6 between 1990 and 2014, representing a fall of 17%, the fall in the high income groups to 7.5% in 2014 represented a reduction of 25%.

The data also show that the prevalence rate of underweight (low weight to height) under-five-year-olds in low income groups was higher at 34.7% in 1990 compared with 13% for the high income groups, a difference of 21.7%. In addition, 24 years later in 2014, the rate in the low income groups had fallen to 20.4%, whereas for the high income groups the rate fell to 2.5%.

However, the overweight (high weight to height) prevalence rate in the low income groups which was 3.1% in 1990 increased to 3.4% in 2014. Similarly, the prevalence rate in the high income group increased from 5.7% to 6.3% during the same review period.

“The reductions we have seen in nearly a quarter of a century in the number of children and the prevalence rate for stunting and underweight in both low and high income groups, are indications of improved social-economic conditions over the period.

“The increase in numbers and prevalence rates for overweight children in both low and high income groups, not only reflect such improvements, but also the bad eating choices made,” said Issa, who is the founder of the Cool group of companies based in Ocho Rios, St. Ann.