Office of Private Sector Relations at Forefront of Entrepreneurial Development

Contact: Tesa St. Ange

Thursday, July 05, 2001 - The Office of Private Sector Relations (OPSR), in the Prime Minister’s Office, is once again at the forefront of financial assistance to the business sector. On Wednesday July 04, 2001, the OPSR signed its seventh project agreement, this time with the Junior Achievement Outreach Programme (JA ), a school-based entrepreneurial programme introduced as a project of the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture in 1996.

The project agreement is for three years and will provide the JA Outreach programme with $54,000 per year to support the work of its new Executive Director, Anselma Calderon, and improve the programme’s service to its members. Among the benefits expected from the OPSR assistance are the implementation and maintenance of specific programmes in at least 80% of all secondary schools per year; the implementation and maintenance of the Middle Grades programmes in at least 80% of all primary schools per year; the generation of adequate sponsorship revenues to cover the materials and the various administrative costs of each programme.

Present at Wednesday’s signing ceremony was Minister for Commerce, International Financial Services and Consumer Affairs, Honourable Philip J Pierre. He welcomed the injection of funds, pointing to it as part of government’s efforts to create the enabling environment to improve the capacity of young businesspersons to compete in an increasingly global market climate.

Economic Policy Advisor and head of the OPSR, Adrian Augier, suggested that the project agreement represents both the dynamism of the JA programme and the commitment of the OPSR to establishing initiatives to energise the private sector.   He noted that while this is not the largest project agreement, it is an important investment in the next generation of business people.

“This project aims to create a spirit of entrepreneurship in young people. We’re using the school-based population but those young people will very soon be out on the streets, looking for jobs, starting their own enterprises. Bringing people into that mystifying world of business and how it operates is an investment in the psyche of the nation. We’re also creating the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, by giving them the skills that are necessary to start a business, to run a business even through the ultimate dissolving of a business, ” Augier said.

The mission of the Junior Achievement Programme of St. Lucia is to develop and implement programmes of economic education designed to help young people gain understanding of the importance of market driven economics, the role of business in a global economy, the commitment of business to environmental and social issues, and the relevance of education in the workplace. The educational goals of JA are realised primarily by the creation and operation of student businesses sponsored by local enterprises, which generally operate outside school hours but in school facilities and within the school calendar.  In the Caribbean, Junior Achievement programmes are established in Antigua, Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Belize and St. Lucia.

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