UNDP and OECS provide skills training in ‘at risk’ communities

OECS Media Release

The Commission of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Sub-regional Office for the OECS and Barbados, is currently conducting community participatory exercises in ‘at risk’ communities throughout St. Lucia.  

Activities began in Garrand, Babonneau, last week, and are designed to identify niche market opportunities in affected communities. The aim is to train vulnerable community groups, such as youth, women and persons with disabilities to find employment or seek entrepreneurial interests.  

This capacity building exercise, supported by St. Lucia’s Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment, forms part of the Multi-dimensional Approaches to Poverty Eradication Project (MDAPP), an initiative aimed at broadening the approach to poverty from a purely economic approach to a more comprehensive focus on the multiple dimensions of poverty and well-being. 

Dr. Julie Xavier, the UNDP Project Coordinator at the OECS Commission, said that these activities are deliberately aimed at encouraging persons to find viable opportunities within their own communities; thus reducing the need to migrate to other locations.

The community exercises provide residents with practical skills to think and act like successful persons through strategic planning for their future.  Residents are also engaged in a community branding exercise involving reflection on the community’s assets and the new image that they wish to portray for their community, as a means of attracting investment.  

Similar community exercises have already been held in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and will continue for the next two months in Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica and Grenada. The MDAPP is funded by the Government of Chile.

Julie Xavier

UNDP Project Coordinator , Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

Phillip Cupid

OECS Communications, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

Ramon Peachey

OECS Communications, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

Tahira Carter

OECS Communications, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

Vincent Lewis

Communications Consultant, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

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About The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

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The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) is an International Organisation dedicated to economic harmonisation and integration, protection of human and legal rights, and the encouragement of good governance among independent and non-independent countries in the Eastern Caribbean. The OECS came into being on June 18th 1981, when seven Eastern Caribbean countries signed a treaty agreeing to cooperate with each other while promoting unity and solidarity among its Members. The Treaty became known as the Treaty of Basseterre, so named in honour of the capital city of St. Kitts and Nevis where it was signed. The OECS today, currently has eleven members, spread across the Eastern Caribbean comprising Antigua and Barbuda, Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and The Grenadines, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Martinique and Guadeloupe. 

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