Axcel Finance, a micro-financing company which has been operating in Barbados for only two years, has been lauded for initiating a mentorship program for secondary school children.

While stating that it was good to have such a program, Minister Jones said: “We would have had in this country, over time, different iterations of something approaching mentorship, but with most things in life… they rise and fall.”

Noting that it was for one term and at the end of the exercise students would be given seed capital from Axcel Finance to develop a project or undertake some community program, the Education Minister stressed that it was not only about the incentives, but at its completion how students would have developed.

Chief Executive Officer, Samuel Rosenberg, in his address, said AMP was an initiative which is expected to guide students.

Emphasising that it was the “first-of-its-kind” in Barbados, he said its aim was to change students’ lives, and called on others in the business community to come on board. He said: “Give students once a month, one hour of your time and you can make a difference. This is not about money or charity; this is about enhancing the society, the community and the economy, not just for today but for tomorrow.” (JG/BGIS)