Saint Lucians are being treated to two weeks of activities for the 2016 Nobel Laureate observance to be held Jan. 17 – 30.

Her Excellency Dame Pearlette Louisy, Governor-General of Saint Lucia, is the Chairperson of the Nobel Laureate Committee. Dame Pearlette said the thrust of the observance has always been to encourage excellence at all levels.

"Every year we celebrate under the theme of excellence, and while we celebrate the achievements of our two Nobel Laureates, we also hope to encourage society to embrace and pursue that disposition, that attitude, that approach to everything that we do – that disposition towards excellence."

­Nobel Laureate observance activities are open to the public. Dame Pearlette encouraged everyone to take advantage of the opportunities presented.

"I’m always at pains to disabuse people. The Nobel Laureate [observance] is not necessarily for the intellectuals and the academics, it’s for everybody. That’s why we’re saying we celebrate excellence in anything that we do."

Nobel Laureate Week began in 1993, one year after Hon. Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Sir Arthur Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1979.