Summary of Poverty Reduction and Social Inclusion Programmes

The Ministry of National Mobilization, Social Development, Youth Affairs and Sports in the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines has the responsibility for providing appropriate mechanisms and social services aimed at strengthening and sustaining individuals and communities with specific focus on poverty alleviation family, gender, co-operative and youth empowerment, participatory physical education and sports. This mission is generally executed via the following Divisions within the Ministry:

(i)    Administrative Division
(ii)    Family Affairs Division
(iii)    Liberty Lodge Boys Training Centre
(iv)    Gender Affairs Division
(v)    Community Development Division
(vi)    Co-operatives Division
(vii)    Youth Affairs Division
(viii)    Physical Education and Sports Division

The following Programmes listed on the pages attached are a list of all poverty reduction and social inclusion Programmes executed by the Ministry:

(1)    Home Help for the Elderly Programme
This programme is aimed at setting up an effective community service, to improve the quality of care, to promote a better quality of life in senior citizens’ homes and to create a network of community and institutional care. Home Caregivers are trained and employed to over four hundred persons throughout the State.

(2)   Foster Care Programme
This Programme facilitates the provision of quality care for several children who have become vulnerable. Their vulnerability may stem from varying circumstances including loss of parents, gross parental neglect and other forms of blatant child abuse.

(3)   Public Assistance Programme
The aim of this Programme is to provide financial assistance to indigent persons in the society, both for economic survival and educational development.

(4)   Crisis Centre
The Crisis centre is a facility that is expected to provide the closest possible accommodation that resembles an environment that would allow residents to begin the healing process which is required to help them lead productive and fulfilling lives. This institution would serve as a place of rehabilitation and for strengthening of persons who can eventually become worthwhile citizens. Through the operations of this Centre, many lives can be spared the turmoil of abandonment, and intangible benefits of self-confidence, high self-esteem and self worth will be demonstrated.

(5)   Liberty Lodge Boys Training Centre
This Centre is a home for boys which adopt the role of providing a social safety net for less fortunate boys in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Programmes encompass, providing a caring environment in which boys 7-16 years old of poor and disadvantaged families having familial, educational, social, emotional and or behavioural difficulties, can develop skills that would allow them to become responsible and productive citizens.

(6)   Fathering Programme
This Programme is intended to meet the challenges of “men and boys” at risk of poverty and social exclusion by hosting workshops and lectures to improve their social and economic status.

(7)   Teen Parents Programme
This Programme enables teenage parents to complete their secondary education level which would equip then with the necessary tools to become self-sustainable by providing resources to attain entrepreneurial, educational and psychological development.

(8)   Male Under-Achievement Programme
This Programme aims at providing initiatives and projects to reduce male marginalization in communities, by providing resources to attain educational, economic and social development.

(9)   Poverty Reduction Project for Rural Women
This Programme reduces the level of poverty in rural communities by targeting women with little or no income alluding to improved levels of self-employment and sustainability.

(10)   Community Resource and Internet Centres Programme
This Programme funded by UNDP/GOSVG, seeks to empower these communities through the promotion of internet and computer training. The internet centres are to provide communities with affordable internet access points, access to basic information, surfing the internet, email, Word processing and introduction to computing.

(11)   Kingstown Literacy and Parenting Skills Development Programme
This Programme targets parents and children in the capital of SVG with a lack of effective literacy and parenting skills and subsequently provides resources to improve their educational and socio-psychological status.

(12)   Community Youth Education Project
This Programme targets pre-tertiary level students to facilitate student support by providing extra-curricular activities to socially enhance young people.

(13)   Potable Water Supply to Poor Households
This Project seeks to provide pipe-borne water to poor households on an individual basis, as well as enhance the access to water supply in poor communities, thus alluding to socio-economic development.

(14)   Children Against Poverty (CAP) Programme
This Programme, hosted in the summer, targets under-privileged and under-achieved children as well as the parents of those targeted children. This summer camp seeks to improve both parents and the children’s social and educational skills. 

(15)   School Co-operative Agri-business Initiative
This Programme is intended to teach students at an early age to gain interest and knowledge in the agricultural sector by introducing training in both theoretical and practical applications leading to entrepreneurial and educational attainment in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Education.

(16)   School Co-operative Thrift Programme
This Programme is intended to meet the challenges of poverty by introducing financial values to children at a young age introducing them to the credit union community, creating opportunities to save and to promote economic development.

(17)   Producers Co-operatives Programme
This Programme is intended to assist both the fishermen and farming communities in promoting financial and social invest in these groups and also provide financial management training to the above mentioned target groups. This project is executed in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, which shows bilateral levels of cooperation.

(18)   Youth Employment Services (YES) Programme
This Programme is designed to target unemployed youths between ages 16-30, unskilled or semi-skilled to provide persons with valid work experience, an income via a stipend, training and an opportunity to advance socially and economically.

(19)   “Youth on the Block” Programme
This upcoming Programme is intended to promote projects with linkages to agriculture and tourism, creating marketability of localized products, while providing employment, training and micro-enterprise development among the youths of SVG.

(20)   Easter and Mid-Year Youth Training Programme
This Programme, executed during the easter and summer periods, is aimed at facilitating sports as a curricular activity for both primary and secondary students throughout the country subsequently creating socio-economic development.

(21)   Sporting Clinics Programme
This Programme is intended to mimic a clinic in principle by executing training sessions in diverse sporting disciplines on Saturdays to varied persons across communities.

(22)   National Wellness Programme
This Programme encapsulates all levels of target groups: Public Servants, communities, senior citizens and prison inmates. The objective of this programme is to target all citizens providing both physical and theoretical frameworks, which includes dieting practices and exercising techniques to eventually improve health conditions of persons. This particular project focuses on developing the social and nutritional aspect of a human being.

(23)   Four Sports Developmental Programme
This Programme aims at executing training components in four main sporting disciplines to each school facility, thus increasing interests in sports for youths and the potential for sporting advancements, which benefits the individual socio-psychologically and economically.