On Saturday, July 01, 2023, the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis officially launched its ELEVATE Programme at the NEMA Conference Room. The revised programme has a fundamental focus on human development. ELEVATE effectively revamps the Alternative Lifestyle Pathways Programme (ALPP), commonly referred to as the “Peace Programme”.

The modifications to the programme became necessary as an evaluation of the programme revealed shortcomings including mismanagement in general comprising a lack of transparency and accountability under the former Dr. Timothy Harris-led administration.

The reformed programme features three ‘ELEVATE’ options, namely, elevation through training and certification, elevation through capacity building and elevation through entrepreneurship.

With respect to the training and certification aspect of the programme, Permanent Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Ms. Naeemah Hazelle said, “It will look at training certification programmes and internships. We have local businesses who have offered to do training for our ALPP participants.

Currently, the ALPP participants have been separated by zones; we’ve got zone one, zone two and zone three. In future, our participants will actually be defined by training categories or these programme option categories. From our registration, we determined that we had a lot of interest in certain areas like plumbing, construction etc., so you would then be now re-registered into the groups that are related to your skill sets.”

Elevation through capacity-building will see the participants exposed to opportunities for skills training and opportunities for learning how to enter a formal procurement process.

“It is our interest to help our clients to bid for projects and to allow them to bid within the ALPP programme. The participants would be permitted to bid for the opportunities in terms of trucking, for [disposing] of garbage, and if we are having workshops and we need food preparation they would be allowed to bid for those as well and that’s an opportunity for them to practice the process of bidding and proposal writing, and then of course looking at some of the contracts that we can offer through the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis,” PS Hazelle explained.

The third ‘ELEVATE’ option, elevation through entrepreneurship, speaks to improving existing businesses, enterprise start-ups and the soon-to-be-introduced ‘ELEVATE Shark Tank’.

Importantly also, Permanent Secretary Hazelle said the participants of the programme will be registered with the Social Security Board so that they too can reap the benefits of the scheme.

She added, “For those who are not aware, the members of ALPP are not registered with Social Security. During our consultations, this was a matter of concern for our participants as it was as if they had no work record at all. So, it’s very important for us as we reintegrate them into the societal system that they would also be registered as working persons and receive the benefits of Social Security.”

The ELEVATE programme will run for a period of two years.