Red Stripe Provides Training for 238 Young Persons

Minister of Labour and Social Security, Hon. Shahine Robinson, has commended corporate giant Red Stripe for providing valuable skills training to 238 youth, through its Learning for Life (LFL) programme.

Addressing Red Stripe’s LFL graduation ceremony on November 30, at the Red Stripe Oval on Spanish Town Road, in Kingston, the Minister thanked the company for its continued commitment to making substantial contributions to national development.

“Through its charitable arm, the Desnoes and Geddes Foundation, the real meaning of philanthropy and nation building is being manifested. I laud the Foundation, as since its inception it has single-handedly trained approximately 12,000 individuals. This is no mean achievement,” she said.

The Minister challenged the graduates to use their newly acquired skills to play their part in driving national and economic development.

“As trained, certified and qualified Jamaican workers, you can play an integral role in enhancing our levels of productivity and our competitiveness, thus furthering the hope for Jamaica,” she urged.

Also congratulating the graduates was State Minister in the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Floyd Green.

“The Ministry of Education has always been on board as a partner in the Learning for Life programme. We need more programmes like this, because other than training, we need more entrepreneurs, and now that you have these skills, I hope that more of you will set up companies,” he said.

Head of Corporate Relations, Red Stripe, Dianne Ashton-Smith, who gave an overview of the programme, noted that the training provides the flexibility for participants to pursue entrepreneurial ventures as well as provides job-placement opportunities.

“Through the programme, we aim to facilitate first-time employment for at least 70 per cent of the participants through direct job placement, sometimes at Red Stripe and at other corporate entities in Jamaica and through internships,” she explained.

Funding for the LFL programme is provided by the Desnoes and Geddes Foundation.

The LFL programme aims to empower young people from low-income households through training, job creation and entrepreneurship.

Students in the programme are between 19 and 39 years. Approximately 80 per cent of them are under the age of 30 and were not educated beyond the secondary-school level. More than a third of the graduands are women.

Training of the participants was provided by the HEART Trust/National Training Agency (NTA).

The graduates were trained in three areas – Project Entertainment, Project Grow and Certified Bar. All graduates received certification from the HEART Trust, with more than a third receiving Level 1 regional certification.

Under Project Grow, 30 of the participants were trained in crop production, with a specialty in cassava cultivation. All have been employed on Red Stripe’s cassava farm in Spring Plain, Clarendon.

Project Grow is the beer company’s local raw-material sourcing initiative in which cassava starch is used to replace a percentage of imported high maltose corn syrup used in the brewing process.