After a silent capital campaign of almost two years, more than EC$15 million in capital has been raised through the work of Grenada’s diaspora to rebuild one of the three campuses of Grenada’s indigenous TA Marryshow College (TAMCC).

It’s the solid evidence that tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique has successfully convinced its diaspora to become visionary partners, rather than just visitors to their home island. 

When he became Prime Minister in 2022, Dickon Mitchell made a strident call, as he pivoted away from treating the diaspora as a mere “ATM”.

After all, the relationship with the overseas communities was seen strictly through a charitable lens—barrels sent home for Christmas, cash remittances to relatives, or the occasional one-off donations to needy projects.

PM Mitchell appealed to the diaspora, with a population scattered across New York, London, Toronto and Trinidad and Tobago, that is larger than Grenada’s population of just over 100,000. And, he strategically labelled them as the island’s sixteenth constituency.

On Saturday morning, when the TAMCC Foundation was officially launched in St George’s, it was not just for the optics of the Diaspora Homecoming Celebration.

“The public can see the evidence now, but we’ve been building in this silent campaign for the capital for the last two years,” Dr Walter Simmons, Professor of Economics and Director of Global and International Business Programs in the Boler College of Business at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, said.

The capital that has been raised in the past two years has been invested in rebuilding the Mirabeau Campus, a farm school located on the eastern part of the island, that needed help after sustained damage from hurricanes Ivan, Emily and Beryl. 

It is now a training institute that covers 25 acres in the parish of St Andrew.

“When I came aboard as one of the Finance Chairs of the TA Marryshow Community Council in 2022, we realised that the college has an operating budget, but not a capital budget. One of the goals I thought was for us to begin a capital campaign,” Dr Simmons explained.

“We really need to improve our infrastructure,” he admitted, “and our strategic plans call for long-term projects. If you have to think about the future of the only indigenous college here in Grenada, we have to change up our curriculum and look towards the future.”

“How are we going to sustain this stuff, and how is it going to be beneficial to the country, are the questions we have asked,” Dr Simmons told Caribbean Pulse.

“It’s been a long time in coming, and now we’re launching the foundation, which means that we’re able to raise capital from all over the world.

“As a professor of Economics and Finance at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, I’ve worked on multi-million dollar projects; that’s what I do.

“Sometimes we’re up there doing all these things in a foreign country, and you ask yourself, what are you doing for your own country? How easy can you make it for them?”

“This Foundation is basically a non-profit charitable organisation, and we can establish chapters in London, New York, and Canada. So, when we started raising money, we were building three major foundations, three centres of excellence at the Tanteen Campus in St George’s, the Mirabeau Campus in the parish of St Andrew, and the campus in Carriacou,” Simmons said.

When he addressed those gathered at the launch, TAMCC Principal, Andrew Abrahams, mused, “This is about investing in people that will outlast us.”

“We want to have a 21st-century curriculum and a sustainable financial model,” as he placed new words into the narrative: “TA Marryshow University.”

This involves a Marine Institute at Carriacou and a Hospitality and Tourism Campus at Tanteen (St George’s), with plans for Heritage and Music Studies and a Pharmacy programme that will prepare young Grenadians for jobs in the new Polaris Hospital Project.

To achieve it all, according to the Chair of the College Council, Wendy Grenade, means shifting away from government funding, with a shift to securing international grants, because a large capital campaign is needed to reshape the education landscape on the island.

It is definitely not pie in the sky.

But the seeds planted in the diaspora are bearing fruit.