PM Douglas reiterates his Government’s commitment to empower nationals

The National Information Technology Center at the C. A. Paul Southwell Industrial Park

BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, MARCH 30TH 2011 (CUOPM) – St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas has reiterated his Government’s commitment to empower the people of the twin-island Federation.

Responding to a question on a recent edition of “Ask the Prime Minister,” Dr. Douglas said those at the lowest income level are citizens who have the right to enjoy whatever those who are at the highest income level enjoy today.”

“In Cabinet, we reviewed the fact that we have provided so far over the last 15 years 3,500 houses in order to appropriately shelter our people. Almost as it was pointed out in that presentation to the Cabinet, one house per day for every working day that we have been in office, empowering the lives of thousands of people, more 25% of the entire population in a country of mainly 39,000 people on St. Kitts,” said Prime Minister Douglas.

He said his Government remains committed and has begun the process to provide children of low income families with computers and access to the internet at their homes.

“We have said that as a policy that they must be able to enjoy the modern technology that other children who are coming from parents of means can enjoy today, they must never ever be left behind and it is because we believe that (the notion) of a class system must be eliminated,” said Dr. Douglas to the caller.

Some of the St. Kitts and Nevis students studying in Taiwan meeting with Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas during recent visit to Taipei

He said his Government will continue to make sure that “our young people, once they have come through the various levels the primary and secondary level education here in this country, they have the right to go onto a tertiary level education whether here in St.Kitts and Nevis or abroad, even though their parents came from the cane fields, even though they would have been classified as of the third class in the past; we are saying that those barriers must be broken down today.”

Dr. Douglas said young people and not so young businessmen and women, “who aspire to start their own businesses, who want to become entrepreneurs, must never ever be entrapped with the notion, that because their parents were not the merchant class and the planter class of the 18th and 19th century, that they cannot with pride start their own businesses here in St.Kitts and Nevis.”

Recent graduates from universities in Cuba

“There are examples of those who have come from very poor and humble beginnings and who today have amassed the infrastructure in Basseterre and elsewhere that can demonstrate the fact that the entrepreneurship of St.Kitts and Nevis is not within only one group of persons historically, but it must pass to others who are thrifty, who are intelligent, who want to work hard and who have the notion for success,” said Prime Minister Douglas.

Since taking office hundreds of young people have had access to scholarships in Cuba, The Republic of China on Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom as well as financing for scholarships at universities in the United States, the United States Virgin Islands and other countries. Computer labs have been built in all primary and secondary schools and thousands of students and adults have been trained in information technology at these centres and at the National Information Technology Centre on the C.A. Paul Southwell Industrial Site.