(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) More than two hundred students from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will be exposed to the operation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) during the period 30 August to 3 October 2009.
This exposure represents the second phase of the CARICOM Secretariat project, “Students engaging the CSME through Field Promotion”. The project is funded by the European Union (EU), under the 9th EDF Caribbean Integration Support Programme (CISP) and entails training youths to identify and develop responses to CSME opportunities including wage employment, self-employment and starting a business in the CSME. Last year, during the first phase, sixty students from Belize, Dominica and Suriname were involved in the missions.
Batches of twenty five students from the Community will visit another CARICOM Member State. Students from tertiary institutions in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica will visit Dominica and Grenada respectively during the week of 31 August 2009.
The Missions continue from the 13 to 19 September 2009 when another batch of students from Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines will travel to Belize, Guyana and Suriname respectively.
Then the final groups will engage the CSME from the 27 September to 3 October 2009 when students from Grenada, Guyana and St Kitts and Nevis travel to Antigua and Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Saint Lucia respectively. Students from Barbados are expected to visit St Kitts and Nevis later this year.
After completion of the Missions, students will assist in the preparation of a project report which will be made available to national, university and school libraries. At the end of the project, tertiary students from all twelve CARICOM Member States presently participating in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy would be exposed to the CSME.
