Gov’t aiming to reduce poverty, unemployment in more families

The Government of Barbados is continuing its efforts to help its citizens who require social support.

The Ministry of Social Care, Constituency Empowerment and Community Development recently entered a US$10 million loan agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) for the execution of the ‘Strengthening Human and Social Development in Barbados’ Project.

Word of this came from Chairman of the National Assistance Board (NAB), Senator Rev. Dr David Durant.

The five-year project will see the Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development; the Ministry of Health and the Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation partnering with the Ministry of Social Care. It is targeted at the unemployed and vulnerable youth. It will also help 250 households in an adapted version of the Identification, Stabili-zation, Enablement, Empowerment (ISEE) Bridge Programme.

“Through the loan, we will now be able to help 250 families, rather than just 30 families as through the ISEE Bridge Programme…We will try to reduce extreme poverty by catering for 250 families – unemployment through technical training and career guidance – we will be able to train and empower and give people ‘tools’ to work with.”

The Senator, who was at the time delivering the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) lunchtime lecture, revealed that in addition to being an expansion of the ISEE Programme to include more families, another component of this Project will be the enhanced institutional capacity and support network through a new Management Information System (MIS), which will facilitate better information sharing among the key agencies.

Also, acknowledging the success of phase one of the ISEE Bridge Programme, which assisted one family in each constituency, Senator Durant shared “The families were submitted by Social Workers who recognised that the families were really at the lowest end of inter-generational poverty and really needed help. That entire family was taken under the ISEE Programme – training provided for them, education, repairing of their homes under the Poverty Alleviation Programme …The first phase was successful and the second phase is currently under way.” (TL)