As the unemployment rate continues to escalate, especially among young people who comprise about 64% of the region’s population, job creation is one of the most challenging tasks facing Caribbean governments today.
By no means confined to the Caribbean, youth unemployment is a global problem, with the International Labour Organization (ILO) saying that 70 million young people are actively, but unsuccessfully, seeking employment. The young job hunters represent nearly 40% of the world’s total unemployed, and unemployment levels for the 18-29-year age group are generally two to three times higher than those for older persons.
The unemployment rate in some Latin American and Caribbean countries is as high as five times the rate for adults age 45 and over. Caribbean-wide data indicates that St Lucia, Dominica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Jamaica, have the highest youth unemployment rates.
Many young people who are employed are occupying low-paying temporary positions with little or no job security, moreover.
While a long-term solution to this issue is to re-engineer the education system so that education not only becomes more accessible to all young persons, but is also more relevant in addressing the diverse needs and supporting the varied aspirations of its students, a more immediate answer is vital to fill the gap.
In this regard, a short to medium-term solution is to motivate young people to create their own employment and by extension employment for their peers, particularly in the creative and technology industries.
While formulating appropriate regional policies to address the former, the CARICOM Secretariat is also creating the necessary enabling environment for the latter, with Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunity (CEBO) entrepreneurship training for young people across the region, starting with targeted member states including Jamaica, Belize, Dominica, The Bahamas, and St Kitts and Nevis.
Part of a regional project developed by the CARICOM Secretariat, the CEBO training is designed to engage, motivate and inspire entrepreneurial interest and action among youth 15 to 29 years old. It emphasises creativity and teamwork and is delivered through hands-on, interactive youth-friendly methodologies.
Over a five-day period, participants set up and staff simulated companies, develop a basic business plan and create, market and sell products and services using seed money provided by the workshop organisers.
At the end of the workshop, companies prepare a profit and loss statement; analyse their mistakes and successes and share profits in accordance with criteria which they themselves develop.
The project is unique in that it was developed by young people, facilitated by young people, for young people.
The project was launched successfully in Jamaica, where just under thirty young people participated. At that training, Jamaica’s Minister of Youth and Culture Lisa Hanna pledged her country’s commitment to ensuring that appropriate follow-up actions would be taken to sustain the project.
With the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Government of Japan and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Dr Heather Johnson CARICOM Secretariat Deputy Programme Manager, Youth Development and a team of trainers then took the project to Belize where some 25 young people benefitted from one week of intensive training.
According to Dr Johnson, the training will equip young people to better appreciate and understand the Caribbean Community as the setting in which they can realise their dreams and aspirations, as well as to access business development opportunities under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The project comes with a user-friendly CEBO Manual which was developed by a broad based Regional Technical Working Group appointed by the CARICOM Secretariat. It is informed by the research findings of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development, the Barbados Youth Business Trust’s (BYBT) At-Risk Entrepreneurial Youth Business Labs Training Manual and other regional and international materials.
Dr Johnson says that the manual, “fulfils commitments in the Declaration of Paramaribo on the Future of Youth in the Caribbean Community; and responds to recommendations in the reports of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development and the ‘Second Chance – Reducing Risk and Vulnerability Among Youth’ Pilot Project (2010).”
The CEBO Manual is accompanied by a Workshop Facilitation Manual (WFM), a step-by-step guide to the organisation, design, delivery and evaluation of the Training Manual; a PowerPoint content outline for facilitators, which also provides a visual element for participants; and a compendium of youth friendly ice breakers, energisers and experiential exercises.
Commenting on the project, CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque noted, “without decent employment, young people will lose hope and migrate to another country or region where they perceive the chances of fulfilling their dreams and aspirations to be greater.”
He acknowledged that while entrepreneurship will not solve the problem of unemployment, “it is a viable alternative that will propel the Community closer to the goal of economic resilience.”
