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Contact:
Chris Satney
Monday, February 28, 2005 - An opportunity for young persons to explore
their own business ideas is being afforded by the start of a new youth
entrepreneur scheme on the island. Stakeholders of the St. Lucia Youth
Enterprise Development Project met last week for an orientation exercise, which
will help facilitate smooth operation of the facility to function under the
auspices of the James Belgrave Fund (BELFUND).
The exercise was also used to develop a better understanding of the philosophy
and methodology governing the Commonwealth Youth Enterprise Development
programme, a micro-credit and enterprise development initiative, designed to
promote youth employment, aimed at alleviating poverty among young people in the
Commonwealth.
Speaking at the orientation exercise last Friday, February 25, at the Mount of
Prayer at Coubaril, Castries Minister for Social Transformation, Culture and
Local Government Honourable Menissa Rambally said the programme was expected to
help alleviate the problems of unemployment among the island’s youth.
“This, in a sense is a call to the young people within our communities, who are
seeking another type of opportunity to create a livelihood for themselves, to
create activity within their community, to create activity for themselves and
their family. This programme also has as an objective to create economic
diversity within our society. We believe that the economic growth of our society
is not dependent simply on our large entrepreneurs and big businessmen,”
Minister Rambally said.
The venture is the collaborative effort of the Ministry of Social
Transformations and the Commonwealth Programme Caribbean Centre.
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