THIRTY at-risk youth are benefitting from a five-day workshop, which will equip them with values and attitudes as well as entrepreneurial skills to create and manage successful businesses.

Dubbed: 'Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunity' (CEBO), the training is part of a regional programme developed by the Caricom Secretariat, which is targeted at young people 15 to 29 years old. Jamaica is the first country to benefit under the initiative, which got underway on Thursday at the Kingston Youth Information Centre, 16A Half-Way-Tree Road.

Deputy programme manager, Caricom Secretariat, Dr Heather Johnson, in her address at the opening ceremony, said the training is intended to inspire and motivate entrepreneurial interest and action among the participants.

She said that similar workshops will be conducted in Dominica, The Bahamas, St Kitts and Nevis, and Belize.

According to Dr Johnson, the training will equip young persons to better appreciate and understand the Caribbean Community as the setting in which they can realise their dreams and aspirations, as well as to access business development opportunities under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

She said that "entrepreneurship development might not solve all the problems but it will help us to move closer as a region to the goal of economic resilience."

Minister of Youth and Culture, Lisa Hanna, said the Government is committed to empowering young people "to create their own possibilities".

She stated that while efforts are being made to put the country on a path of fiscal development and growth, "the country cannot neglect our young people".

"We have to position the cultural and creative industries among the leading sectors for foreign exchange earnings for Jamaica and I am encouraging you the youth to look to the creative industries for the growth centre of the present and the future," she added.