The Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment is in the process of completing plans for a project, which will teach inmates at the HMP Dodds how to become entrepreneurs.
During remarks at the start of the Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme’s (YES) Set Up For Success two-week training workshop for participants of the Ministry’s Building Blocks Project this morning, Minister Sutherland spoke of the proposed project.
He stated: “We are finalising the plans for a project which will provide inmates with the tools to develop their own businesses after their release from prison.”
Minister Sutherland added that the Building Blocks Project and the pending partnership involving the Third Sector, the Prison Fellowship Barbados, the Prison Service and YES, will cater directly to the “empowerment of our nation’s youth and their contribution to the overall social and economic development of Barbados within this ever-evolving dispensation”.
Pointing out that Government spends over $28 million in running HMP Dodds, which currently houses 852 persons, with 650 below the age of 35, Mr. Sutherland believes this project could assist those inmates with business ideas to bring them to reality after they were released from prison.
Minister Sutherland also highlighted that the Ministry was moving swiftly towards the execution of the second phase of the Building Blocks Project, and approvals had been granted by the Town and Country Development Planning Office for the construction of facilities at Bayville and Sayes Court, as well as the identification of six additional sites, with the help of the Ministry of Housing.
He noted: “Government intends to honour the initial commitment of developing 30 building blocks sites across the island.”