WASHINGTON, United States — Touting the enthusiasm which greeted the Jamaica Social Stock Exchange (JSSE) road show in the diaspora last year, Ambassador to the United States Audrey Marks called for the engagement to continue in digital format, which she said would reach significantly more people.

“Today’s launch is the start,” she said, “Let’s capitalise on our powerful brand and get the show on the virtual highway!”

She made the proposal while addressing the launch of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE)-Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) project “Innovating Social Sector Financing”. The event occurred at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston Tuesday, with the Ambassador joining from Washington, DC, by virtual link and focusing her remarks on mobilising the Diaspora to support projects on the JSSE.

Citing initiatives to benefit under the project – among them Alpha Boys Music Institute, Choose Life International, Spring Praise Jamaica, Teen Jamaica, and Mona-Tech Engineering Services which manufactures ventilators for the national COVID-19 relief initiative – Ambassador Marks thanked Jamaicans in the United States for supporting the noble cause.

Some 150 social service groups island-wide, including churches, foundations, non-governmental organisations and social enterprises – many of them headed by women – as well as 10,000 poor and vulnerable persons, are expected to benefit from the undertaking.

The initiative is being facilitated under a technical cooperation agreement that was signed in December 2019 by the JSE and the IIDB, which is providing US$420,000 of the financing. The remaining sum is being provided by the JSE.

Among other featured speakers on Tuesday were JSE Managing Director Marlene Street Forrest and head of the IDB in Jamaica as well as general manager of its Caribbean department, Therese Turner-Jones.