BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – YOUNG potential entrepreneurs are being exposed to the possibilities and realities of entrepreneurship through their participation in the Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunity (CEBO) programme currently being piloted in Sandy Point.
The five-day programme, which commenced yesterday (Nov. 5), is being held at the Sandy Point Community Centre.
The opening ceremony saw presentations by Entrepreneur of Positively Inclined Ervin Welsh, Minister of Youth Empowerment the Hon. Glen Phillip and Programme Manager of Culture and Community Development in the CARICOM Secretariat Dr. Hilary Brown.
Welsh, in providing an overview of the project, described it simply as “a solution to a problem”. He said it allows persons to see “opportunity in their unemployment rather than go along with the culture of waiting for employment”.
He explained that one of the main thrusts of the programme is to create a culture of entrepreneurial thinking and entrepreneurship among the island’s youth.
“Creativity and innovation are necessary for any business to succeed and CEBO is about really inculcating that idea in persons. It’s not just about starting the barber shop or the salon or doing agriculture, it is about how you go about doing to make sure that you are successful in this economic climate which is very difficult…”
Dr. Brown underscored the importance of these workshops, noting that they were “designed by young people supported by technocrats to deliver an exciting, intense five-day workshop where you actually take an idea from concept to market and get real hands-on experience in doing that”.
During the intense five-day workshop, the participants would receive training in areas including Building My Team, Market Research and Analysis, Costing and Pricing, Legal Business Structures, Financial Projections and Managing Risk & Contingency Planning.
The programme – according to Dr. Brown - has already been piloted in Belize and Jamaica and, after St. Kitts, it would be piloted in Dominica and the Bahamas. And at the end of the pilot project, an assessment would be performed to determine what the best practices were.
The participants were urged to take advantage of the opportunities being provided them through this workshop and to glean as much as they possibly could from both the presenters and resource personnel.
The CEBO workshop was declared open by Minister Phillip, who noted that the programme is in keeping with the government’s thrust to “develop programmes that could utilise the skills, energies and talents of our young people ensuring their ability to contribute to the growth of our economy”.
The opening ceremony was poorly attended by participants but Senior Youth Officer Pierre Liburd, at that time, informed that other participants were on their way to the workshop.
