CEBO Comes to Belize
A CARICOM initiative to get youths involved in business is taking place in Belize City. This week, a group of thirty youths will be participating in the programme named Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunity initiative. They will be learning and discussing and how to succeed in business. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
The CARICOM Secretariat continues to work to implement programmes aimed at improving citizen security and putting in place initiatives to address recidivism and youth unemployment. Back in 2011, it established the Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunity initiative, better known as CEBO. The programme in a nutshell focuses on high energy engagement with young people. Today, inside the conference room at the Marion Jones Sporting Complex, Belizean youths were taken on.
Richard Berwick
Richard Berwick, CARICOM Regional Facilitator, CEBO Programme
“CEBO came out of a study that was done on youth in 2010; the “I am the Future of the Caribbean Youth.” So the study went around the region, trying to figure out or find what is it that young people feel; what are their thoughts on how youth are treated in the region and they felt as though they were excluded from political decisions and other decisions that involved themselves. So as a result of that and throughout that study, they figured let us create a programme that can help with crime reduction and violence because the region was plagued with that.”
For the next few days, the Belizean youths will be participating in workshops that simulate everything in business at the regional level.
Richard Berwick
“In our programme, we cover community development; we cover marketing, branding, customer service; we talk about CARICOM because this is a CARICOM initiative. Many of the countries that we’ve been to, a lot of the persons are not so acquainted with CARICOM, the Secretariat or the countries that exist. They are not so acquainted with the CSME movement so as a result of that, we bring all of the necessaries for business and we created the CEBO programme.”
The participants and the stakeholders involved were organized through the Department of Youth Services to ensure that the programme in Belize is effective. Duane Moody for News Five.
