Taiwan Technical Mission promotes Upskilling Jennes Incubator in St Lucia

St Lucia: The Taiwan Technical Mission in collaboration with the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College visited the Laborie community on Saturday June 4 to promote the Upskilling Jennes Incubator and Business Coaching Programme.

The programme is a component of the Upskilling Academy Jennes Programme now being offered at SALCC and fully funded by the Government of Taiwan.

Over 100 Laborie residents signed up to be part of the programme – some with existing businesses who need coaching, and others looking for opportunities for self-employment.

The visiting team comprised staff of the College and the Taiwan Technical Mission including the Ambassador and his wife. Ambassador Peter Chen addressed members of the community seeking an opportunity to participate in this fully funded programme.

The Ambassador encouraged the audience to embrace the opportunity to accelerate; announcing additional vocational training for 70 secondary school leavers noting that “when we invest in young people, we invest in the future”.

Parliamentary representative for Laborie/Augier, Honourable Alva Baptiste was also on hand to lend support to the recruiting activity and encourage young people to take advantage of the opportunity for training to help develop and grow the economy.

“So this particular exercise is to ensure that young people find their space and create their own future because they are the future leaders of this country.”

Members of the community including Ambassador Julian Dubois lent valuable assistance with the logistics and promotion of the activity to the Laborie community.

The ‘Incubator for Start-up Enterprises’ is a three-month programme designed specifically for women and youth start-up entrepreneurs. It will take the form of seminars and workshops that take place in blocks and are structured to continuously build the knowledge of participants so that they are fully equipped to handle entrepreneurial projects. The programme is geared towards developing an entrepreneurial mindset, and features training on topics such as idea generation, design thinking and introduction to prototyping. This is followed by the creation of a business plan/model and will also involve training in basic accounting and marketing.

The last portion of the programme will see the aspiring entrepreneurs make an actual prototype of their product and display their creation at a showcase event. The incubator will allow for mentorship and coaching from industry experts to ensure the future success of the start-up ventures.

The ‘Business Coaching’ programme is another major part of the Upskilling Jennes Programme. This training programme will provide successful candidates from the initial incubator training, as well as young entrepreneurs who have already started a business, to receive mentorship and business counselling from foremost experts in the industry on various business related topics. The Business Coaching programme will also run for a three-month period.

The deadline for registration for these two programmes was June 10. Interested individuals can visit the website www.upskilling.salcc.edu.lc or email upskilling@apps.salcc.edu.lc for more information, the government advised.