50 St. Kitts Professionals Benefit from Grant Writing Workshop at CFBC

CFBC

(Basseterre, St. Kitts) 4 June 2012 — Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College will play host to more than fifty professionals in higher education, government ministries, private business, and the non-profit development sector for a two-day workshop in grant writing on June 5 and 7. Facilitated by CFBC visiting professor Dr. Kevin Meehan, the workshop is funded in part by the Florida Association for Volunteer Action in the Caribbean and the Americas (FAVACA), and will cover topics such as how to locate funding opportunities, understanding priorities and application formats of funding agencies, and practical workshop activities designed to take participants from a basic project summary through to a draft grant proposal.

According to Dr. Meehan, who teaches literature and Caribbean Studies at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, and has won grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation and elsewhere, St. Kitts and Nevis professionals already conduct top quality research and development projects but can do more to publicize their efforts and attract a greater share of the $33 billion available from regional and international funding agencies.

“I know from personal experience over the years that excellent projects in agriculture, health, youth development, and so on, often fail to gain the recognition and support they deserve outside the federation. Having lived here for the past six months, I think one reason is that the people organizing research and development projects rarely have the time to think, reflect, and write about their work. Hopefully this workshop will provide a space to do some strategic thinking and writing, along with providing some information about funding sources and grant application formats.”

The grant writing workshop is made possible through a collaboration between CFBC and FAVACA, an organization that connects volunteers based in the state of Florida with specific development needs in Latin America and the Caribbean. FAVACA is no stranger to the federation, having worked previously to support agricultural projects organized by Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).

The workshop continues on the CFBC main campus Hospitality Centre on Thursday, June 7, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm.

For more information, please contact Kevin Meehan at (869) 760-5739 or kevinvmeehan@gmail.com.