Scores of curious people ventured into the 3Ws Oval, Cave Hill Campus, University of the West Indies yesterday for the 4th annual UWI Graduate Fair.
The event, which was designed to increase awareness among the public about the various offerings of the university and some of its business partners, saw 32 booths,
ranging from banking and financing services to various programmes and job opportunities being introduced to interested patrons.
According to Cave Hill’s marketing officer Janet Caroo, each year about 600 people attended the event. She said the annual fair was one way of encouraging people to become more marketable and to promote entrepreneurship among graduates.
“In this recession some people want to take the time to retool and even downscale. So it is about making yourself in your current job more valuable. We have a diverse option and we continue to grow. I am hoping for more people this year,” said Caroo.
She said over the years they have improved on any challenges they may have had.
“One of our limitations is that people complain about the traffic. We have improved on the traffic we had last year, we have increased the hours so people leaving work late in the evening still can come by,” she said.
Project assistant with the Small Business Association (SBA), Michelle Tull, said they were helping people to develop a business out of their hobbies while they studied.
“We have a programme which is geared toward students at school. What we do is that we tend to get them involved in what they like to do, if they have an area of interest we help them to develop it and that is what we are doing here today,” she said.
Brian Charles, customer contact centre manager at the BNB, said he found that a lot of people were interested in taking out loans for school.
“The booth is always busy and it is a good sign. I think people find it convenient because of the many branches throughout Barbados. It has been good for us over the last few years and we certainly would like to continue doing this,” said Charles.
There has been an additional three business programmes on display this year from the department of economics – Transport economics, logistics and supply chain management and banking and finance – which are expected to start in January.
Lecturer Winston Moore said there were already lots of applications. Moore said the new programmes were geared towards “providing employees that are productive” as the country looked at ways and means of getting out of the recession.
