Basseterre, St. Kitts, December 16, 2020 (SKNIS): Census Day, a day set aside to determine who is counted in the 2021 Population and Housing Census, as well as where they are counted, is slated for Thursday, September 16, 2021, in St. Kitts and Nevis.
“I want to take the opportunity to announce that September 16, 2021, is designated as Census Day for St. Kitts and Nevis and several other member states within the CARICOM,” said Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris during the tabling of The Appropriation (2021) Bill, 2020, on Tuesday, December 15 at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort Ballroom.
This day is the reference period for the count of persons residing in St. Kitts and Nevis. Notably, the census interview is somewhat lengthy because the information is requested from every single household in the Federation on matters such as housing, access to computers and internet, educational attainment, access to health care and social services, long-term illnesses and disabilities, and employment status- to name a few. Hence, the actual interview process starts from August and continues into October 2021. Herein, the “Census Day” reference point becomes important as to where persons of a said household resided. The participation of everyone is important to enable effective planning for the sustainable development of the Federation. “It’s you. It’s me. It’s us- 2021 Census”.
Officials from the Department of Statistics in St. Kitts and Nevis recruited field enumerators to assist the department in conducting the Pre-Census Listing and Mapping Exercise which will run until December 2020.
“Enumerators will be collecting data such as the place of residence of all of our citizens and residents. This information will determine the official record of the population distribution and other socio-economic data across the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis,” said Prime Minister Harris. “This information would be relied upon to indicate in real terms what additional investments may be required to meet the needs of the various communities.”
Prime Minister Harris said that having updated and accurate data is key to ensuring systematic policy planning.
“Mr. Speaker, our efforts to build a stronger and safer future for our citizens and residents cannot be undertaken without access to current and accurate data. And, in this regard, we remain committed to advancing the implementation of the 2021 Population and Housing Census,” said Prime Minister Harris. “This undertaking will facilitate evidence-based policymaking as we endeavour to provide access to essential services and basic infrastructure.”
He encouraged the general public to cooperate fully with the enumerators, noting that the Census will redound to the benefit of everyone.
A Census gathers information about the general population to present a full and reliable picture of the population in the country – its housing conditions and demographic, social and economic characteristics. The information collected includes data on age, gender, and country of origin, year of immigration, marital status, housing conditions, marriage, and the number of children, education, employment, and travel habits.
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 29, 2020 (SKNIS): Residents of St. Kitts and Nevis are strongly encouraged to be cooperative and truthful with enumerators working on behalf of the Department of Statistics whenever surveys are being conducted. Cooperation and confidentiality are key messages being communicated as preparations continue for the conduct of the Population and Housing Census in 2021.
A team from the department appeared on the radio and television programme Working for You on Wednesday (October 28, 2020) to raise public awareness about the work of the government department and next year’s census.
Director of Statistics, Carlton Phipps, said that all information collected is kept strictly confidential. This is a mandate of the Statistics Act of 2002, which outlines legal penalties and fines for any breach of information.
Section 17 (2) (a) of the Act states that “Any person, being in possession of any information which to his or her knowledge has been disclosed in contravention of this Act, who publishes or communicates such information to any person shall be guilty of an offense against this Act and shall on conviction on indictment, be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years or to a fine not exceeding six thousand dollars or to both such imprisonment and fine.”
Director Phipps added that it is virtually impossible to single out any one individual as all of the information is grouped.
“We collect data from households [and] that data is only consolidated and published in an aggregated format so that the manner in which we publish such data it would not be possible to identify any particular person or any particular group within that data set,” he stated.
Additionally, each enumerator must take an oath of confidentiality before he/she is allowed to carry out their duties.
Also appearing on Working for You were Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Elretha Simpson-Brown, Senior Statistician with responsibility for Data Dissemination and Advocacy, Samantha Huggins, and Social Statistician/Demographer, Corneil Williams.
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 29, 2020 (SKNIS): Social Statistician/Demographer in the Department of Statistics within the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Mr. Corneil Williams, said that information taken from persons during a census is taken very seriously and that they take every precaution to ensure that the data is answered truthfully.
“We ask the respondents to be forthright and honest with their responses to the questions,” he said while appearing on the October 28 edition of “Working for You.” “Part of that is that they understand that this is for no purpose except for the good of the country and for your own good. There is no negative effect that can come back at you for providing this information.”
Mr. Williams stated that the persons collecting the information, the enumerator, their information is then fact-checked.
“The supervisor has the responsibility to go back to a portion of those households and verify that the person actually came to that household and conducted interviews and that these were the responses given and that these responses are actually truthful and factual to the best of their knowledge and ability,” he said.
He said that this is then followed up with a Post Enumeration Survey where a percentage of the full information collected is again surveyed.
“We go back to a percentage of the population and we ask ‘Good day, we received this information from you and we are seeking to verify that it came from you and that this is, in fact, the truth as it is known to you’,” said Mr. Williams. “So, there is a multistage process to ensure that the truthfulness and the factuality of the data provided.”
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 29, 2020 (SKNIS): Officials from the Department of Statistics in St. Kitts and Nevis are encouraging households to give their full support to field enumerators and actively participate in the Pre-Census Listing and Mapping Exercise, which will run until December 2020.
“We are making the appeal that we are doing our part at the Department of Statistics, and we are looking for the support of the public,” said Elreter Simpson- Browne, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sustainable Development during the October 28 edition of ‘Working for You.’ “We are appealing to the persons out there to know that the Housing and Population Census involves everybody, the information collected will benefit everybody so when we come to your home please support us and give us the information that we are asking for.”
Mrs. Simpson-Browne said because the data collected is so important the Department of Statistics proceeded to launch an awareness campaign aimed at educating the general public.
“We decided that we are not going to leave any group or class of people out of this awareness programme. We are taking it down to the primary schools, secondary and tertiary. We are going to the NGOs, government ministries and the private sector,” said Permanent Secretary Simpson-Browne, while noting that enumerators encounter problems where parents would command the children to lie about their presence at home. “My experience going out into the field tells me that you must educate and let the children know what a Housing and Population Census is. If we make the children aware… when we go back to the house, and the child comes out, I believe that we would get a different reaction.”
She said it is important for the people to know that if the Census is not conducted properly and if the data is incorrect then the entire country fails.
Social Statistician/Demographer in the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Corneil Williams supported the permanent secretary and appealed to the general public to assist the enumerators as much as possible. He said that the data collected will be used for various reasons and by various entities. For example, the data on age give a general idea of persons who are still in school, those of working age, as well as those who are retired. The data will also be utilized by Social Security for dependency purposes and pension planning.
“I am hoping that persons can see that it is of value to them and are willing to give the information when requested, and hopefully we can provide back to them in short order the outputs, the tables and the information,” said Mr. Williams.
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, October 27th, 2020 (ZIZ News):
By: Chaïra Flanders
The 2021 Population and Housing Census will be the topic of discussion on the Wednesday October 28 edition of Working for You on ZIZ.
Permanent Secretary in Ministry of Sustainable Development, Elretha Simpson Brown, Director of Statistics Carlton Phipps, Social Statistician/Demographer, Corneil Williams and Senior Statistician, in the Department of Statistics, Samantha Huggins will be the featured panelists.
The guests are expected to discuss the activities taking place in preparation for next year’s Population and Housing Census scheduled to take place in September of 2021.
“Working for You” is carried live every Wednesday on ZIZ, WinnFM and Sugar City Rock from 1:30-3:00 pm.
The programme is also streamed live on the SKNIS Facebook page.
]]>NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS October 14, 2020 (Nevis Island Administration) — The Department of Statistics and Economic Planning in the Ministry of Finance on Nevis will embark on a Pre-census Mapping Exercise from Friday, October 16 to Friday, November 20, 2020, as part of activities leading to the conduct of the Population and Housing Census commencing in September 2021.
Mrs. Dorriel Phillip, Director of the department noted that it is important to find out the true number of households on Nevis to plan for the census next year.
“We have a whole year and there are different exercises and different things that need to be done before we get to the census. So one of the first things that we are going to do is the Pre-census Listing and Mapping Exercise…It seeks to collect data on the number of households and persons residing in the various communities on Nevis and it also provides an update of the housing stock.
“You would realise that when we started 2010/2011 census and the 2020/2021 census that a number of new houses would have been built. So we need to capture the new houses that have been built and we need to know how many persons are right now residing on Nevis so that we can plan for the 2021 actual census,” she said.
For the pre-census exercise, each parish has been sub-divided into Enumeration Districts (EDs) and in accordance with the guidelines issued by CARICOM (Caribbean Community), each district should not exceed 100 households.
“That’s one of the first things we are checking in that the EDs that we presently have do not exceed 100 households and for those that have exceeded 100 households, with the help of the [Department of Physical Planning] we will have to change the boundaries of the EDs.
“So for each household there will be five simple questions and that is: Who is the head of the household? The contact number for the head of the household? The number of persons living in the household? How many persons living in the households are males and how many are females? And the address of the household,” Mrs. Phillip explained.
The Department of Statistics and Economic Planning Director urged the public to cooperate with the enumerators, and gave the assurance that all information received would be treated with confidentiality.
“I would just like to encourage the general public to work along with our enumerators when they come to your homes. It won’t take you more than two to three minutes to answer the five questions. They will be using tablets so once the information is in, it is private, it’s confidential and it would be kept in the strictest confidence.
“We will be using it to help us to go forward in planning Census 2021 because when it is census everybody should be counted; everybody matters. This is not a sample survey where we are just doing a part of the population but this is every person must be counted, and so we encourage all persons to please cooperate and help us to do the job we set out to do,” she said.
The enumerators conducting the survey will be identified by their name tags which will also bear the department’s logo.
]]>NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS September 28, 2020 (Nevis Island Administration) — The Department of Statistics in Nevis has launched three competitions ahead of the national census carded to take place in St. Kitts and Nevis in 2021, and is urging members of the public to participate
The department’s Director Mrs. Dorriel Tross-Phillip made the appeal in an interview with the Department of Information on September 17, 2020.
“The Statistics Department also has three prize-winning competitions that we are going to be doing shortly and they are the Primary School Population and Housing Census Tagline Competition and these are for ages 9-12 or Grades 4-6. We also have the Secondary and Tertiary Schools Population and Housing Census Slogan Competition and it’s open to all secondary and tertiary students, and then we have the Population and Housing Census Logo Competition that is open to the general public and that’s [for] persons of all ages.
“The tagline is specific to the primary schools. The slogan is for secondary and tertiary and then the logo is for the entire population, and so we are encouraging persons to participate…For the students, you get a prize for yourself and also for the school. So we are asking the schools and the headmasters to encourage the children to enter,” she said.
Persons interested in entering the competitions can access the relevant information on how to do so by visiting Nevis Statistics Department Facebook page and the Nevis Island Administration’s webpage at www.nia.gov.kn/statistics. They can also visit the Statistics Department which is located upstairs of ValuMart. Entries may be submitted via email at statsdeptnevis@gmail.com or they can be dropped off the office. The deadline for submission is October 07, 2020.
The winners of all three competitions will be announced on Caribbean Statistics Day, October 15.
On the heels of the slogan competition, a Jingle contest will be launched.
“We need a slogan. From that slogan we will be having a jingle competition coming in October. So the jungle competition will come after the slogan because the slogan dictates the jungle,” Mrs. Tross-Phillip said.
]]>The Department of Statistics within the Ministry of Sustainable Development wishes to announce the launch of three prize-winning competitions to promote awareness of the 2021 Population and Housing Census.
The first competition is a primary school’s Population and Housing Census Tagline Competition for students nine (9) to twelve (12) years of age or grades four (4) to six (6). The second is the secondary school’s Population and Housing Census Slogan Competition which will cater to students from first to fifth form. A third competition dubbed the Population and Housing Census Logo competition is open to persons of all ages.
To apply, all interested persons are required to visit the St. Kitts Office located upstairs the Total Concept Building at Bladen’s Commercial Development in Basseterre and the Nevis Office upstairs Value Mart IGA Building, Farms Estate. Persons can also register online via stats.gov.kn.
Deadline for submission of application is Friday, September 25, 2020.
Guidelines for the competitions can be accessed via the links below:
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, September 11, 2020 (SKNIS): As the Department of Statistics in the Ministry of Sustainable Development prepares the general public for the 2021 Census, the institution is in the process of commencing an awareness drive by launching several activities ahead of the September 2021 event.
One of those activities includes a Census soft launch which will go live on September 16, 2020, National Heroes Day. The theme for the launch is “The Population and Housing Census is One Year Away!”
“The soft launch is necessary to create awareness in the public about the upcoming census activities. We are starting now in terms of creating awareness. The awareness drive from now is to highlight some of the activities we have coming up shortly and to sensitize the public that the census is just around the corner,” said Director of Statistics, Carlton Phipps, during an interview with the St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service (SKNIS) on Thursday, September 10.
One important aspect of the launch is a countdown clock to Census 2021 and Census Tab that will be activated and carried live on stats.gov.kn.
Other activities aimed at keeping the public actively informed include a public campaign; public service announcements; radio and TV advertisements; promotions for participation in competitions; visits to schools to promote a tagline and logo/slogan competition; distribution of posters and flyers, as well as a radio programme.
Mr. Phipps appealed to the general public to visit the department’s webpage for more information and encouraged them to actively participate and support the efforts of the Department of Statistics where necessary.
]]>Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 25, 2020 (SKNIS): Social Statistician within the Department of Statistics, Corneil Williams, has advised the general public that preparations for the 2021 Population and Housing Census will commence this September.
“We would begin the process of preparatory activities of the Population and Housing Census for 2021, which is due on or around September 2021. While the census itself is not due until next year, it is a very lengthy process and so we want to let the public know that they will be seeing us and hearing about us,” said Mr. Williams during his appearance on the June 24 edition of the National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) COVID-19 Daily Briefing.
Mr. Williams laid out the Department’s plans for 2021 regarding the census.
“In September of this year, we will be launching a slogan completion, as well as a logo competition. Internally, we have to begin the process of creating new maps and Enumeration Districts (EDs) for the conducting of the census,” he said, adding that EDs “refer to the smallest area which we would use to count the persons living in any particular area.”
He noted that the process of conducting a census is extremely important to a country as it provides data on numbers of people, their spatial distribution, their living conditions and other key socioeconomic characteristics to name a few.
“This process is vital so that we may be able to provide information to the public with regards to age, sex, the ethnicity of the population, as well as other factors such as the employment and income of people,” the social statistician added.
The first census in St. Kitts and Nevis was conducted in 1871 and the last one was carried out in 2011.
In October 2019, officers representing the Departments of Statistics in both Nevis and St. Kitts, as well as media representatives underwent a capacity-building workshop to better prepare them to effectively execute their duties as it relates to data collection, evaluation and dissemination in the Federation.
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