Gleaner's Silvera to be featured on world travel show

THE GLEANER'S award-winning journalist Janet Silvera will be featured on Travel Channel International's 'It's a Woman's World', a brand-new series that immerses viewers into the lives of interesting and inspiring women who live and work in some of the most fascinating places on Earth.

Silvera was selected by the show's producer, Julia Cornes, whose research revealed that she was not only Jamaica's Best News Journalist for 2009, but also president of the Western Jamaica Media Association, a dynamic and certified events manager, and a woman dedicated to promoting Jamaica's tourism.

'It's a Woman's World' is hosted by Camilla Anderson who will take the Travel Channel audience of some 60 million viewers in 118 countries on a journey with her to four very exotic countries around the world, and investigate the best each country has to offer the female traveller from all-out adventure to pampering.

selected countries

Jamaica, South Africa, The Philippines and Turkey are the four countries selected for the series' inaugural season. Producer Julia Cornes explains: "We have selected these four countries as we believe their women will be amazing and varied ... perfect for our first series."

In each episode, Anderson will delve deep into a day in the life of a strong female character existing in a "typically" male domain. Local culinary delights will be featured, and she hopes to learn traditional recipes from an adopted mother, sister or aunty, while illustrating that sharing meals in another country is an essential experience.

In Jamaica, the show will be filmed in Kingston, Portland and St Elizabeth. Filming commenced on Monday.

Silvera will be interviewed on the job as senior Gleaner writer; at her hideaway - 'Sister Lou' in Black River St Elizabeth - today, and at 'Kingston Pon Di River', the literary, arts and music festival she is staging in the capital city on Sunday.

Although a Montegonian, Silvera is intent on placing the spotlight on Kingston.

"I feel the time is ripe for Kingston to fulfil its true potential and enhance its image as a place to which tourists - both local and foreign - flock in search of intrigue and introspection; a milieu which provides a rich recipe of urban and contemporary culture which diversifies our tourism product, which is too often reduced to the offering of sea, sand and sun - brands best known on Jamaica's north and south-west coasts.

"Kingston oozes a mixture of sounds and smells, and is a history book of politics, music, church, sports and other expressions of culture, which can endear the city to visitors. The jewel is there, glistening beneath the rough."