CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Feb 15 2015, CNS – Carmy Joseph is the first of her mother’s three children and her father’s 10 children. Born and raised in the eastern Saint Lucia community of Mon Repos, she moved to the capital city of Castries when she was eight. She graduated from the Marchand Primary School with a Common Entrance score that placed her sixth overall in the island. She later attended the St. Joseph’s Convent where she excelled in History, Social Studies and English Literature.
Carmy worked in the Courts Credit Department, taught for one year and worked at the Hunter J Francois Library at the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College before going to College. She also completed A Level Sociology as a private student, getting an “A”.
Carmy went to college at St Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada where she completed a double major in Journalism and Political Science. She was the first female and black Editor-In-Chief of her college newspaper The Aquinian where she started as the Arts & Entertainment Editor in her first year. While in College she made the Deans List every year and won several awards for her contribution to campus life.
She began her professional life as a senior journalist at Radio 100/Helen Television System in Saint Lucia. Months into the new job, she was promoted to Sub-Editor and months after that to Assistant News Editor and eventually News Editor. She also Anchored the News and talk shows as well as hosted and produced television programmes Mass Fever, Jazz It Up and Synergize. she was awarded the CMEX “Emerging Journalist Award” in 2009.
Carmy is currently employed at St Lucia Electricity Services Limited (LUCELEC) as a Corporate Communications Officer where her duties include preparing the company Newsletter, writing press releases and handling all social media.
She also manages Saint Lucian soca artiste Mongstar.
- What do you love most about the Caribbean? Our music, Carnival, food, beauty and how different yet the same all the islands are.
- What brings you the greatest joy? Everything. I am grateful to be alive and try as much as possible to drink it all in.
- What is the best advice you’ve been given? “Don’t be lazy”
- What is on your bookshelf? Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is what I have on my bedside table. I try to read a classic novel a year. My books are still in boxes and are college textbooks from my politics and journalism classes that I loved. I also have fiction and romance novels because they remind me of summer months spent reading with my cousin who has since died.
- What charity do you support? I don’t belong to a charity but I donate to causes that support education and children.
- What is on your bucket list?
- Have a family reunion
- Visit Africa
- Take a cruise with my College friends
- What is on your perennial to-do list? Call my parents. Read something that has nothing to do with work. Relax.
- Who are your Caribbean heroes? Bob Marley because in addition to giving us beautiful music that was like poetry, he also showed us how great love was simply by the way he lived his life, loving all. Dame Eugenia Charles because she was the first female Prime Minister of the Caribbean. The founding members of the OECS because they dared to stand together as one unit and decades later that “all for one and one for all” mentality has kept us all afloat. The West Indies Cricket Team because despite everything, nothing beats them in victory and my parents because they love and support me unconditionally.
- Who is on the guest list for your ideal dinner party? Bob Marley, Margaret Thatcher, Derek Walcott, Jay Z, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Sir John Compton and Dr. Kenny Anthony
- What quote do you live by? “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela. My mother was one of the three youngest of her parent’s children. Unlike her older siblings who missed school to help out on our family farm, they went to school because my grandfather came to believe education and not toiling the land was a better way to carve a future. However, despite being very bright, my mom never graduated because she had me. But she loved school and instilled a similar love and respect for it in me. She graduated from a training college in 2014; decades after what should have been her high school graduation. It was one of the greatest days of my life.
- What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you? I have stage fright.
- What is one thing you wish you knew when you were younger? Everything you believe about yourself and the world are true. Your knowledge will deepen with time but what is at your core, what is true, never will change so hold on to yourself and your truth.
- What would you want to say to the Caribbean about any one of these: Agriculture, Arts & Culture, Climate Change, HIV/AIDS, Tourism? What unites us is far greater than anything we think divides us. We all cry with joy and pain when the West Indies plays cricket. We celebrated with Usain Bolt, Tessane Chin, Machel Montano and Bunji Garlin just as we are proud to have birthed Nobel Laureates like Sir Arthur Lewis, Derek Walcott and VS Naipaul. We have struggled and triumphed together. And I wish that unity pervaded more of what we did.
- Any final words? Someone asked me once what I would change about myself if I could and they were dumbfounded because I said nothing. It’s the truth. The way I look reminds me of where I come from since everyone in my family shares similar traits. Everything I have been through contributed to who I am today, someone I am proud of and love. I enjoyed every phase of my life and is grateful to everyone who got me here, but most of all I am glad that God loves me and continues to manifest in my life.
