A conference aimed at increasing the participation of low- income persons in wealth creation opportunities as part of the solution to changing garrison communities will be held next week Thursday.

Organisers of the Social Entrepreneurship Conference and Awards Ceremony say the event is the first of its kind in Jamaica and seeks to respond to Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ challenge to end political zones of exclusion by facilitating poor people to start their own businesses.

Top business leaders Douglas Orane and Jukie Chin are scheduled to share their knowledge and representatives of the two major political parties will speak at the conference being hosted by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship and Equity (I-SEE) in partnership with the University College of the Caribbean.

The conference is a further attempt to engage Jamaican society and raise awareness of the power of social entrepreneurship in tackling problems of unequal distribution of wealth, low participation in the society, poverty, crime and violence, organisers say.

Features of the conference include the main address by Orane, the retired CEO of GraceKennedy, and a panel discussion on the topic “strategies for wealth creation at the base of the pyramid” involving the governing Jamaica Labour Party and the Opposition People’s National Party.

UCC Pro-chancellor Dr Herbert Thompson, in endorsing the conference, yesterday pointed to the work of the Grameen Bank, founded by Professor Mohammed Younis in Bangladesh in making loans mainly to poor rural women as a successful example of social entrepreneurship. He said education should be used to provide the masses with the skills and knowledge to provide employment for themselves.

“We believe that education allows every person to have a place at the table because one thing you don’t want is for the conversation to be taking place in your absence,” he said at the launch at the UCC’s main campus in Kingston yesterday.

I-SEE director Dr Michael Rosberg said there are opportunities for social entrepreneurs to sell their services to persons who wish to start businesses. These services include the preparation of business plans, helping persons to join a bank or credit union and preparing loan requests.

Dr Rosberg traced the root of garrison politics, not to the 1940s, but in the “opportunistic neo-colonialism of the 19th century”. He suggested that the political parties alone will not be able to eliminate garrison politics because “they may discover they are too dependent on the status quo to end the game”.

The conference is unique in that it seeks to break the cycle of patronage from politicians and dons, he noted.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce Reginald Buddan noted that social entrepreneurship is a rapidly growing area in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. He said in Jamaica section 16 of the Companies Act allows social enterprises to get exemption from certain taxes.