Fol­low­ing the 49th Meet­ing of the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment held from Ju­ly 6 to 8 in Ja­maica, Syn­er­gy Sphere Casa (SS­Casa), a T&T-based or­ga­ni­za­tion fo­cused on na­tion­al and re­gion­al work­force de­vel­op­ment strate­gies, is ac­cel­er­at­ing its ef­forts to sup­port re­gion­al ex­pan­sion, with a fo­cus on food se­cu­ri­ty, work­force em­pow­er­ment, and cross-sec­toral col­lab­o­ra­tion.

The Cari­com sum­mit em­pha­sised re­duc­ing the re­gion’s high food im­port bill and pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able food sys­tems through in­creased pro­duc­tion, in­tra-re­gion­al trade,and strate­gic part­ner­ships.

The “25 by 2025” ini­tia­tive, which aims to re­duce food im­ports by 25 per cent by 2025, aligns close­ly with SS­Casa’s mis­sion to strength­en agri­cul­tur­al pol­i­cy, in­fra­struc­ture, and re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

As part of its com­mit­ment to this agen­da, SS­Casa led a high-lev­el del­e­ga­tion to Guyana from June 26 to 28, en­gag­ing with na­tion­al lead­ers, pri­vate sec­tor part­ners, and tech­ni­cal in­sti­tu­tions to ex­plore col­lab­o­ra­tive op­por­tu­ni­ties.

The del­e­ga­tion was head­ed by chair­man Eu­daine Gar­cia and in­clud­ed CEO Samuel Wil­son, CFO Co­lette Bur­nett, RO Ja­son Fran­cis and me­dia spe­cial­ist Alleem Mo­hammed.

Chair­man Eu­daine Gar­cia shared her vi­sion for SS­Casa’s role in the re­gion: “We be­lieve that the fu­ture of the Caribbean lies in bold, col­lab­o­ra­tive ac­tion.

“Our mis­sion is to build bridges—be­tween na­tions, sec­tors, and peo­ple—to un­lock shared pros­per­i­ty and em­pow­er our com­mu­ni­ties with the skills and sys­tems they need to thrive in a chang­ing world.”

Dur­ing the mis­sion, SS­Casa held strate­gic meet­ings with:

• The Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs, dis­cussing Guyana’s de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties in­clud­ing health­care, ed­u­ca­tion re­form, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, and trans­port in­no­va­tion

• Hon Min­is­ter Zul­fikar Mustapha, chair of Cari­com’s Min­is­te­r­i­al Task Force on Food Se­cu­ri­ty, to ex­plore agri­cul­tur­al part­ner­ships

• The Guyana As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers (GAPE), iden­ti­fy­ing ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing needs in en­gi­neer­ing and in­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment

• A high­light of the vis­it was a brief ex­change with His Ex­cel­len­cy Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali, who shared his vi­sion for in­clu­sive wealth cre­ation, dig­i­tal ed­u­ca­tion, and fi­nan­cial em­pow­er­ment.

• Be­yond for­mal en­gage­ments, the SS­Casa team con­nect­ed in­for­mal­ly with mem­bers of the Guyanese busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, strength­en­ing trust and re­gion­al good­will.

SS­Casa’s over­ar­ch­ing goals in­clude:

• Cre­den­tial­ing and in­ter­na­tion­al link­ages

• Pol­i­cy col­lab­o­ra­tion across Cari­com

• Glob­al­ly bench­marked train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tions

• Em­pow­er­ment of youth, pro­fes­sion­als, and busi­ness­es with fu­ture-ready skills

• Fos­ter­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship among un­der­served and at-risk com­mu­ni­ties

Next Stop: Bar­ba­dos! SS­Casa will con­tin­ue its re­gion­al en­gage­ment in Bar­ba­dos, ex­pand­ing part­ner­ships and de­liv­er­ing in­no­v­a­tive, sus­tain­able, and high-im­pact so­lu­tions across the Caribbean and South Amer­i­ca.