Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 10, 2014 (SKNIS): The Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunities (CEBO) project launched its six-day Training of Trainers Workshop today (June 10) in St. Kitts.

CEBO is funded jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the governments of Italy and Spain, and is led by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat. It is intended to improve the capacity for entrepreneurship among youth in various Member States.

At the opening ceremony, Dr. Hilary Brown, Programme Manager, Culture and Community Development at the CARICOM Secretariat said that, “It is a uniquely Caribbean entrepreneurship programme. We developed it to suit our social and cultural context and our needs. The purpose is to train facilitators with the necessary skills to engage, motivate and transfer knowledge to a wide cross section of young people in interactive, practical and youth-friendly ways”.

Minister of Youth Empowerment, Hon. Glenn Phillip, declared the workshop open, saying that “This workshop comes as a response to the challenge of at-risk youth in our communities and the challenges of our stakeholders in effectively addressing them,” said Phillip. This programme marks yet another milestone in the long track record of the government’s commitment to the empowerment and social upward mobility of our nation’s youth.”

CEBO is a youth entrepreneurship training programme that was developed by a regional technical working group with support from the CARICOM Secretariat and the Caribbean Group of Youth Business Trust in 2010. It was developed to engage, motivate and inspire youth 15-29, emphasizing creativity and teamwork. Participants set up simulated companies, develop business plans and write comprehensive analyses of outcomes. The Department of Youth Empowerment successfully hosted two CEBO workshops in 2012 and in 2013.