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| Minister of??Small Business Development, Donville Inniss??in discussion with CEO of the Pinelands Creative Workshop, Rodney Grant at the opening ceremoy of a five-day Business Lab which focuses on Cultural Enterprises or culture-based entrepreneurship. |
A new approach to the area of cultural development in a Barbadian context is something that a founding member and Chief Executive Officer of the Pinelands Creative Workshop (PCW), Rodney Grant, would like to see placed high on government’s agenda.
His comments came as he addressed the opening ceremony of a five-day Business Lab which focuses on Cultural Enterprises or culture-based entrepreneurship at the University of the West Indies Open Campus, the Pine, St. Michael.
Mr. Grant said that a lot of work needed to be done as we seek to take advantage of what is available to us in respect of new agreements that were signed, such as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
"We signed the EPA some time ago and we have yet to take advantage of the opportunities that are available to us in the more developed world.?? In terms of moving our products, specifically our cultural products to these markets," he surmised.
Lamenting that a lot of it had to do with the preparation, marketing and development of the product itself, the culture official said it was his hope that the five-day workshop, which will focus on ???culturepreneurship’ – a blend between entrepreneurship and culture – "would push culture in the direction that it is supposed to go."
Before attendees that included Minister of Small Business Development, Donville Inniss; Head of the UWI Open Campus, Dr. Lucas and Israeli facilitators David Slyper and Rina Yaffe, the Pinelands CEO said culture was more than a past-time.?? He maintained that it was also a livelihood experience and something that could be used to help persons deal with everyday challenges in their own circumstances.
"The particular challenge that we must face and must meet is one of market access [and] at the end of the day how we develop our products and how we prepare them to reach particular markets is going to be very critical," he declared.??