Councillors of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) met with representatives of the World University Service of Canada (WUSC), a non-profit organisation that aids in improving education, economic, and empowerment opportunities for youths, women and marginalised men around the world under its program Sustainable Agriculture in the Caribbean Project (SAC). The SAC’s current primary focus is the agriculture sector and ensuring the identified groups involved are adequately trained utilising more up-to-date technologies, have access to meaningful value chains, and acquire the relevant registrations needed to access financing.

The meeting held at the Chamber’s Secretariat, sought to discuss collaboration between the GCCI and the WUSC to build a network to facilitate these objectives for youths, women, and marginalised men in the sector. Moreover, the partnership aims to engage with key stakeholders in the value chain to promote and increase the market share of this category of persons via information sharing; and upscale their business and skillsets. Exposure of the potential beneficiaries to new technologies, more importantly, climate-smart technologies for the agriculture sector, were also tabled for discussion.

With over 600 members, the GCCI sought to invite the WUSC to partake in one of its upcoming webinars to allow for more sensitisation on the SAC program. The Chamber will also deepen its collaboration with WUSC through additional meetings with the GCCI’s Agriculture, Entrepreneurship and Small Business; and its Trade and Investment Committees, which will also contribute to achieving the SAC’s objectives.

Both parties have expressed that the meeting has laid the foundation for promising and fruitful engagements between both organisations and has inspired their desire for continued collaborations.