The Prime Minister of St. Maarten during her opening remarks at the high school JCI speech competition that cultural diversity is essential to our country, but can only occur under the recognition of St. Maarten Culture. The comments where made due to the speech competition’s theme of Cultural Diversity, around which eight students representing various schools on the island had to center their debate.
"It is remarkable that for the last couple of years a common thread in most of my remarks reads "our greatest asset as a country is our diversity; if we are able to harness this well. If this can be done then there will be no other country as unique and strong as ours. However, this needs to be a conscious effort; we need to recognize diversity; we need to ask of each and everyone about what they can bring to St. Maarten and make a collective effort to build up our country. That was part of the declaration when we strived to become a country and we are a country today. And now we balanced all those resources into developing a country; a country we can all be proud of. Although it is considered a cliché, I very much look forward to your speeches, because you are the future of St. Maarten," commented the Prime Minister.