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Jamaica’s Ambassador in USA Calls for Jamaica Social Stock Exchange “Digital Road Show” for Diaspora

Jamaica’s Ambassador in USA Calls for Jamaica Social Stock Exchange “Digital Road Show” for Diaspora
Ambassador Audrey Marks

by Derrick Scott

Washington, DC – Touting the enthusiasm which greeted the Jamaica Social Stock Exchange (JSSE) road show by Jamaicans in the diaspora last year, Ambassador to the United States Audrey P. Marks called for the engagement to continue as a “digital road show” to reach significantly more people.

“Today’s launch is the start,” said she. “Let’s capitalize on our powerful brand and get the show on the virtual highway!”

She made the proposal while addressing the launch of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE)-Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) project “Innovating Social Sector Financing.” The event occurred at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston Tuesday, with the Ambassador joining from Washington, DC, by virtual link-up, focusing her remarks on “Mobilizing the Diaspora to Support Projects on the JSSE.”

Ambassador Marks thanked Jamaicans in the United States for supporting “this noble cause.” She cited initiatives to benefit under the JSE-IDB project, among them Alpha Boys Music Institute, Choose Life International, Spring Praise Jamaica, Teen Jamaica, and Mona-Tech Engineering Services, which manufactures ventilators for the national COVID-19 relief initiative.

Some 150 social service groups island-wide, including churches, foundations, non-governmental organisations and social enterprises – many of them headed by women – as well as 10,000 poor and vulnerable persons, are expected to benefit from the undertaking.

The initiative is being facilitated under a Technical Cooperation Agreement that was signed in December 2019 by the JSE and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which is providing US$420,000 of the financing. The remaining sum is being provided by the JSE.

Among other featured speakers were JSE Managing Director Marlene Street Forrest, with an overview of the Project and Therese Turner-Jones, Representative-Country Office Jamaica, IDB/General Manager–Caribbean Country Department, with “The importance of Social Sector Organizations to the Economy – Why the JSE-IDB Partnership”.

Following the unveiling of the JSE-IDB Project, a Virtual Mingle Question-and-Answer session closed out the launch event.

 

 

South Florida Caribbean News

The SFLCN.com Team provides news and information for the Caribbean-American community in South Florida and beyond.

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