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Debbie Simpson, Chief Executive Officer of Simpson Motors, gives high praises to the "Endless Possibilities – A Job Attachment and Mentorship Programme", during yesterday’s??launch??at the Savannah Hotel. (C.Pitt/BGIS)
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The Ministry of Youth has been lauded for its work with young people.

Those accolades came yesterday from Chief Executive Officer of Simpson Motors, Debbie Simpson, during the official launch of Endless Possibilities – A Job Attachment and Mentorship Programme, at the Savannah Hotel.

Ms. Simpson said over the years the Division of Youth and, by extension, the Ministry had been doing "a tremendous job" and making a great impact on young people.

She stated that Simpson Motors was pleased to be part of the programme, since it viewed mentoring as essential, especially since some young people were not receiving that guidance at home.

She added that the fashion and language skills of some young people made it clear they were not ready for the work environment. "If we want to have good people at our company we have to put in the investment and the time…If you don’t help develop those [young] people, then how can you complain if things are not working out? It is easy for us to support a programme like this, we will be 100 per cent involved in this," Ms. Simpson promised.

Director of the Small Business Association (SBA), Lynette Holder, said the name Endless Possibilities "offers hope, speaks of the potential to innovate, allows a person to be all he can be and to dream" and these were all important to the SBA.

Ms. Holder stated that, through the programme, she hoped the young people would be encouraged to develop their potential. She suggested that Barbados was at the stage where careful thought must go into the kind of goods and services to be developed. "We need to think about the economic fundamentals which will take us to the next period of our development," she observed.

Thirty-five people between the ages of 16 and 24 will benefit from the pilot phase of the five-month programme, which is aimed at empowering at-risk, unattached and unemployed young people. Seventeen public and private sector companies/institutions will participate in the attachment aspect of the programme and some of those business persons will serve as mentors.

sharon.austingill-moore@barbados.gov.bb

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