CEBO- A Move in the Right Direction for Grenada


"The CARICOM Secretariat in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Religious Affairs, has organized a partnership for the programme which is receiving support of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Government of Spain. The programme seeks to give technical support to Member States to strengthen youth entrepreneurship by introducing the CEBO Programme” (Now Grenada, 2014).

CEBO- Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunities

This is something I could definitely support. For too long I have been advocating for entrepreneurship as an avenue for Employment and Wealth Creation. The participants of this meeting which included,

1.      Non-government organisations with an interest in youth entrepreneurship including National Youth Business Trusts
2.      Small and medium enterprise development organisations
3.      Small business associations
4.      Chambers of Commerce
5.      Banks and other financial institutions

are the players needed to help develop an entrepreneurial policy in Grenada thus leading to a culture of entrepreneurship. Far too long we have relied on traditional measures to help generate employment only to find that these measures are temporary fixes to what seems like permanent flaws.

There have been many programmes in the past that included training of young people to try to get them involved in business and entrepreneurship. However, it is high time we realize that teaching young people skills for starting and running a business is not enough to get them interested in entrepreneurship. There must be a burning desire to do something, to make a difference. They need to be resilient, focused, goal oriented, determined, in addition must have good interpersonal and persuasive skills, and be willing to think outside the box, or maybe think inside a new box if needs be. 

Entrepreneurship is not for everybody, and like Jeff Bezos said, “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don't choose your passions; your passions choose you" (Bezos, 2014).

I believe that this can be the flagship programme to help create that culture of entrepreneurship in Grenada and the rest of the Caribbean region, but please don't only focus on creating business plans and developing business ideas and learning about ROI and other skills for starting and operating a business. One must also focus on passion and determination and some of the other soft skills that are important for entrepreneurial success, some of these can’t really be taught,  however,  with the right guidance once it’s within an individual it will come out...Hats off for this programme and Cheers to its success.




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