GREAT BAY, St. Martin \u2014\u201cThe future is vast \u2026 , full of challenges and beautiful surprises \u2026 I embrace this certainty with an open heart, a hopeful spirit, and clear thinking, full of confidence,\u201d said Paulina Nzinga Lake in connection with her first election bid for parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lake is the #6 candidate of Soualiga Action Movement (SAM), fielding its first list of 12 candidates in the election of August 19, 2024. SAM is headed by Frankie Meyers. The businessman and former legislator has also served as the territory\u2019s minister of tourism, economic affairs, telecommunications, and transportation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in St. Maarten,\u201d said Paulina Nzinga Lake. \u201cMy drive for positive change and dedication to St. Maarten reflects over 20 years of private and public sector experience and community service.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Lake is the president of St. Maarten Small Properties Association. She is a board member of the St. Maarten Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Charlotte Brookson Academy for the Performing Arts (CBA).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In keeping with SAM\u2019s platform, Lake plans to advocate for tax break legislation for strategic small-to-medium size businesses. \u201cSmall and medium size hotels should be in line for financial advantages that large hotels have benefited from over the years,\u201d said Lake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSt. Maarten has been in the tourism industry for over 65 years. There is no reason why more St. Maarteners are not hotel owners,\u201d said Lake. She is a former product development assistant at St. Maarten Tourist Bureau and cruise service manager with Port St. Maarten.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no doubt about our people\u2019s will and hard work for success. But where are the incentives, even with NRPB guidelines and requirements? The incentives for St. Maarteners to get in more hospitality businesses, and with stronger footing?\u201d said Lake.\u00a0\u201cI will advocate, from SAM\u2019s education platform, for more St. Maarten teachers. That includes meeting the challenges for more male teachers. It is also urgent for more St. Maarten medical and health professionals to staff our expanding hospital and clinics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe full accreditation of the University of St. Martin must be put in place in 2025. Government cannot be an obstacle to USM fulfilling its higher education purpose and objectives and adding its economic motor as an island and regional institution.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI will advocate with SAM, and with all parliamentarians, for government to work closer with institutions like NIPA. To provide, maintain, and keep developing the links between training and the St. Maarten job market needs and innovations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You know, areas of innovations are especially important for ambitious new graduates and small entrepreneurs to get on their footing.\u00a0I agree with the SAM manifesto on crime. In keeping with that, I would champion a wide awareness of the law related to stalking. Stalking affects women and girls in St. Maarten. It is an underreported danger that can quickly become a violent crime.\u00a0\u00a0Women don\u2019t talk about it often or publicly but make no mistake it happens. The men in some families and sometimes a boyfriend eventually step up in the female\u2019s defense and stop the stalkers in their crazy tracks when things are getting way out of hand.\u00a0But we all need to know how the law applies for the protection of women and girls. Should the law be updated? If no specific law or article of law exists against stalking, then the whole parliament must work with legal and judicial experts to put it in place ASAP,\u201d said Lake.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cAs for translating our laws from Dutch to English, all parliamentarians must work in solidarity. I grew up in a house where this was a normal conversation. My father, Joseph Lake, Jr., wrote about this in his Newsday<\/em> newspaper since the early 1980s, especially when it comes to the education, court, and prison systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince 2010, books like The Laws of St. Maarten<\/em> have been published. But parliament must make it a legal standard to publish all our laws in both official languages. All the St. Maarten people, and definitely those facing the judge in any case, should clearly understand the laws affecting their rights, freedom, responsibility, their property and their very life,\u201d said Lake.<\/p>\n
The St. Thomas University graduate has worked as an executive assistant at the Parliament of St. Maarten. She was the performing arts director at CBA; and founded the popular Little Miss St. Martin Pageant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lake\u2019s grandfather was the late Jos\u00e9 H. Lake, Sr., the island\u2019s \u201cfather of journalism.\u201d He was a politician here and championed workers\u2019 rights island-wide from 1959 to 1976. Lake, Sr. fought for workers\u2019 rights at Lago in Aruba and was elected to Aruba\u2019s Island Council in 1955.<\/p>\n
Paulina Nzinga holds a SCELL journalism certificate from USM, and the Accredited Director certification from the Chartered Governance Institute of Canada.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lake has been an instructor for St. Maarten AIDS Foundation; sergeant-at-arms with Toastmasters International; and the Children\u2019s Room coordinator for St. Martin Book Fair. She works with VOICES foundation against domestic abuse and youth and gun violence; and is the Office Manager of the Rent Tribunal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With her campaign slogan, \u201cCommitted to You. Service over Self,\u201d on August 19, parliamentary election day, \u201cwhether you are residing as a registered voter on the South or North of our island, I\u2019m asking for your vote,\u201d said Paulina Nzinga Lake, SAM candidate 6.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Caption:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paulina Nzinga Lake<\/strong>, candidate for the parliamentary election of August 19, 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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