Bajan Dream Project discontinues housing relief programme: Skills training, entrepreneurial assistance and micro-financing to be continued under a reworked project model.

Updated November 19, 2008, 2320 GMT

The Bajan Dream Project has discontinued its housing relief programme with immediate effect, and will refocus its objectives on providing workforce and entrepreneurial skills training, job assistance, microfinance and venture capital interventions.

With a bold model and a wide-ranging intervention strategy, the breadth of the Bajan Dream Project as it was first imagined is now not within the capacity of our small, grassroots NGO. Indeed, a model like ours does not exist in any civil society organization in Barbados for good reason: the cost of a programme to significantly reduce the number of Barbados' poor in inadequate shelter is so great that such a feat could only be achieved with the institutional might of Government.

While regrettable, the decision to axe our housing programme will ensure that more individuals can be assisted at less cost, while still providing a significant intervention through workforce and small-business skills training, as well as other social interventions currently being considered. During this time, we will also aim to liaise more closely with other NGOs and state agencies to ensure that those in need of adequate shelter can be treated to by other organisations.

In our three years, the Bajan Dream Project assisted a number of Barbadians in real, measurable ways. At times, we were a job agency, negotiating with employers for lower-income persons to secure work in the private sector. At other times, our volunteer teachers provided training for individuals to attain Caribbean Examination Council certificates to further their skills and boost their employability. Finally, and most importantly, we have given business plan counseling to would-be entrepreneurs, and provided them with the necessary links to the microfinance lenders who gave them the loans to start small-scale businesses to begin their entrepreneurial career. These are the areas in which the Bajan Dream Project will now build upon in its new incarnation.

While the essence of the "Bajan Dream" — facilitating  house and land ownership by the poor — has remained unfulfilled, the reality facing an NGO-led housing programme in Barbados means that such an intervention must rely almost completely on loan financing. No public donations could ever supplement the costs of home construction ($1m per annum for a mere thirty homes and plots at a conservative estimate), and Barbados has become increasingly ineligible for development grants, primarily because the island is classed as 'high income' by donors. While the Project thus far has been sustainably financed privately by its principals, the risks involved in bankrolling our housing interventions through loans are now too high to take, especially given the worldwide economic downturn and mortgage unavailability. For all these reasons, the Project's model will now be reworked, and further details will become available within the coming weeks.

The Bajan Dream Project thanks you for your continued support and pledges to continue to help poor Barbadians improve their quality of life.

For more information on any of the above, or to be kept up to date, please contact us at
To find out how you may still volunteer or work with the Bajan Dream Project, email
If you or a nominee requires poverty assistance in any of the areas above, email
For up to date information on our advocacy campaigns, visit blog.bajandream.org

"Houses in Queen's Park" by Heather Sutherland-Wade, Copyright 2008.