VI Collaborative Solutions

PROJECTS

Arts and Culture sits at the heart of the US Virgin Islands and represent the very fabric of our people, heritage, and history.
Led by USVI renowned curator, artist, and advocate Monica Marin, the Arts and Culture Division aims to combine the needs of our local institutions—such as the Children’s Museum of St. Croix, the Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, and the Cruzan Dance Company — with the Project’s preexisting infrastructure and resources.
The Project site is home to the island’s only indoor theater and performance stage.
The Library represents a facility capable of storing artifacts found by project partners (e.g. the Society of Black Archaeologists and the Smithsonian) within a temperature controlled environment.
The collective is currently working with Candia Atwater, founder of the Caribbean Center and Museum for the Arts (CMCA), and artist Susan Lowry on developing the 13ft bronze statue named the “Coal Woman.”
This $350K public art installation, at the Anne Abrahamson Pier, has been approved by the Territory’s Port Authority and is slated to begin its fundraising efforts in the Fall of 2020.
An installation of this magnitude can very well be used as the fundraising catalyst for a Project of this magnitude.

Division partners, Integrated Solutions Consulting (ISC), have emerged asthe USVI’s top federal grants managers within the information and tech space.
ISC plans to begin working with the Office of Disaster Recovery, VITEMA, and FEMA by the end of August 2020.
ISC has represented itself as a provider of technical support and stands to become one of the Project’s first anchor institutions.
Division lead, Dr. Michael Kemp, is one of the nation’s first Ph.Ds in the space of emergency management.
Dr. Kemp is focused on using pre-existing models— such as Delaware and Maryland — to create an operational hub for emergency management and training.
Planning for the Caribbean’s first Emergency Management Institute (EMI) alongside Capella University’s Dr. Michael Brown.
The site would leverage federal training dollars by attracting state departments and FEMA into the space.
“Federal Tourism” would become part of the Territory’s offerings as a premier destination.

The collective has positioned itself at the intersection of conservation and innovation by inventing water storage capabilities and closed-loop industrial cycles.
By partnering with industry leaders, the collective aims to scale and manufacture its approaches for the benefit of the World.
The collective has also partnered with leading scholars and advocates in the space of marine science and development to secure a site location for training the region’s youth on coral rehabilitation and restoration.
The Good Hope Project site lends itself to this initiative for two salient reasons:
- The site is home to the largest salt water pool in the Frederiksted corridor and allows for hands on training in the space
- The site location sits directly on an eroding shoreline, which can be slowed through the development of green and grey
Environmental engineering practices focused on mitigation techniques and combating climate change.
The division is set to host academic offerings immediately pending Board agreement.
The “Agriculture Rehabilitative Program” (ARP)

The collective is formalizing its partnership with the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands (CFVI) and Dalberg.
The collective has formalized a “Global Exchange” partnership with Jamaica’s leading senior economist Dr. Gladstone Fluney Hutchinson of Lafayette College.
From 2010-2013, Dr. Hutchinson served as the Director General and Executive Chairman of Jamaica’s Planning Institute while overseeing and implementing the nation’s first long term development plan, Vision 2030.
Dr. Hutchinson is committed to supporting the development of this larger initiative by accompanying the College’s leading scholars to the Territory as a way of providing real time assistance and exploring long-term academic opportunities within the region.
The collective believes that the USVI has the ability to host an elite academic experience for the nation’s top scholars within the fields of Environmental Design, Science, Policy, and Engineering fields.
The collective has also leaned on the territory’s chosen consultation group — Tetra Tech— to help develop its Community Development Block Grant pending future funding opportunities through the likes of the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands.

The collective has dedicated more than 4 years of research to understanding the Department of Labor’s Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
The collective has fostered relationships with key stakeholders such as James Benton of J. Benton Construction and Adele Soto, former Executive Director of the Virgin Islands Workforce Investment Board, and now a Program Director with the Inner City Fund (i.e. recipient of the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration award of $4.9 million through the National Dislocated Worker Grant).
Paul Blair has committed to training dislocated and at-risk individuals on the craft of installing terrazzo floors and has committed to doing so by using the Project site as the company’s launchpad.
The federal expansion of the Henry Rohlsen airport represents a train to hire opportunity for the division.
The Workforce Development Division is currently formalizing relationships with the Rotary Clubs of St. Croix and the farming community for the execution of a full scale cradle to career approach.
The collective is committed to recruiting trainers for the cultivation of a trade school.
hire opportunity for the division

The Public Health Division has partnered with, the now Commissioner of Health, Justa Encarnacion, to bring the nation’s largest pediatric care network —Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)— to the US Virgin Islands.
Amanda Nielsen has been named as CHOP’s USVI Ambassador to help the administration implement its 11-pronged healthcare reform strategy, while also exploring long-term partnership opportunities for CHOP within the areas of patient services, education, research, and public health.
The 5-year vision for the Division is to build a multi-partner collaboration that will launch the Territory’s first fully Nurse Practitioner (NP) ran facility by supporting the territory’s newly enacted Bill 17-0367, which gives NP’s full practicing rights within the US Virgin Islands.
Rotary International’s health based initiatives will be guided by CHOP’s Healthier Together platform, which focuses on trauma, poverty, housing and hunger as the social determinants of health.
One of the first efforts will be to replicate Healthier Together’s “food pharmacy“ model through the collective‘s relationship with the Department of Agriculture and Human Services.

Arts and Culture Projects

Emergency Management Projects

Environmental Science Projects

Planning and Development Projects

Public Health Projects

Workforce Development Projects