Forty more Vincentian women have benefited from the Taiwan-funded Women’s Empowerment Programme (WEP).
Speaking at the graduation ceremony in Kingstown, on Friday, Director of Adult and Continuing Education, Kathleen Jeffers said that in May 2021, both Taiwan and the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines realised that there was a need to assist women particularly in skills training and ultimately, the project was approved in July of that year.
Jeffers explained that the project is divided in three parts, institutional enhancement, technical vocational training and training of trainers. She commended the participants for finishing the course and called for more stakeholders to come on board, saying support is always needed.
Taiwan’s Ambassador to SVG, Peter Sha-Li-Lan urged the participants to continue in their advancement as “vocational training is a very important part of education”.
The ambassador promised that WEP will continue and will include new projects to be launched in the future.
Lan also affirmed Taiwan’s unwavering support for SVG, saying, “Taiwan will always be with you.”
Minister of Education, Curtis King acknowledged the support given by Taiwan on a number of other initiatives including scholarships, Supportive Education and Training and Youth Empowerment Service programmes, WEP and the newly launched ON-SITE programme as tools to further educate and empower Vincentians.
The minister noted that Taiwan has contributed $500,000 to the programme, which will place 175 interns in the private sector.
To date, 306 participants have completed training from 16 cohorts of WEP.