EMPOWERMENT: Creating Pathways to Success

Much needs to be done to promote, advance and protect our people. Despite legal, political and social advances in the past half-century, inequities remain, most noticeably in the fact that blacks continue to lag in terms of income and rank on the corporate ladder. We recognise too that there are continuing challenges for Bermudians in general and women and the disabled in particular.

The United Bermuda Party has a coordinated, sustained approach to empower Bermudians to seize employment opportunities and to make sure they experience fairness in the workplace. Our thinking is governed by three principles:

• Every Bermudian must be given the opportunity to succeed. o People must be prepared for opportunity and given access to the tools they need to succeed; and
• The government must ensure equality of opportunity and fair treatment in the workplace to help people fulfill their potential.

As we have already outlined, education is the key to empowerment. Until we start providing children with an education that enables them to take advantage of career and workplace opportunities, inequities will continue. We believe our reform programme, with its emphasis on excellence in teaching, highest standards and accountability, school readiness, school autonomy and technical education will lay the foundation upon which Bermuda’s children can fulfill their potential.

The government can play a vital role in helping Bermudians develop as individuals beyond education. It’s about supporting the family, preparing the young student, counseling, making connections and removing obstacles to learning. It’s about nurturing talent, instilling self-discipline to build character and helping to develop skills to succeed in life.

Our programme – “Pathway to Success” – aims to help the individual at key stages of life. In our view, empowerment is a lifetime process. It begins with:

Child Care

Families are under tremendous economic pressure, working multiple jobs or long hours to make ends meet. The next United Bermuda Party Government aims to ease these pressures to give parents more time to focus on giving their children the best possible start. We will:

• Extend maternity leave to ensure mothers have time to look after and nurture their children properly.
• Expand to 3 the number of governmentrun affordable day care centres across the island.
• Provide financial support so that any family can afford day-care up to preschool age.
• Provide incentives for day-care start-ups.
• Determine the feasibility of contributing to a special education fund for each child at birth to assist with the cost of its future education.

Early schooling

A strong educational foundation is key to future success. To give children the best chance to succeed, we will:

• Expand government pre-school availability, recognizing that school readiness can be critically important to student performance over the long term.
• Introduce Life Choices classes for primary students at the earliest possible stage to educate them about personal management, deportment and the consequences of poor life choices.
• Provide free bus and ferry services for all students.
• Ensure a nutritious start to every child’s day by providing school breakfast for those in government schools needing one.

Secondary School

Beyond the need to ensure students graduate with basic skills, much can be done to help them succeed in the workplace and as citizens and adults. To bring this about, we will

• Implement more effective career counselling and mentoring in schools through closer cooperation with existing agencies and the business community at large to provide students with professional advice, academic guidance, scholarship opportunities and introductions to business people and workplace environments.
• Continue Life Choices classes to help mould the mind and character of students, as well as their receptiveness to learning.
• Introduce discipline programmes to protect the learning environment and student receptiveness to teaching.
• Create bursaries to finance at-risk students identified as those who might benefit from the experience of schooling abroad.

College

No student should be denied higher education because of financial constraints. To bring this about, we will:

• Grant up to $15,000 per year in an interest-free loan for any student studying at the college level who needs additional financial assistance providing: o They have done two years at the
  • Bermuda College or,
  • They are in entering their third year.
• Develop Bermuda College as a centre of international business learning, with an industry-designed curriculum and industry representatives providing instruction and career counselling.
• Work with international business to set up summer training for students in reinsurance and financial institutions.
• Create a National Technical Training Institute at the Bermuda College.
• Create a new National Technical Education and Workforce Development Agency as an umbrella agency to replace the National Training Board and run the expanded technical education programme.
• Expand scholarship and bursary support programmes to meet additional needs.

Career

The Government can provide continuing support to help Bermudians in the workplace through:

• Support for on-the-job skills training,
• Increase funding for GED and training programmes for those who have dropped out of the public system, and
• Lifetime learning grants to help Bermudians already in the work force get the retraining and education they need to compete for better jobs.

Government

The United Bermuda Party is committed to ending all forms of discrimination.

As the next government, we will move with precision to ensure that people are treated with fairness, inside and outside the workplace. No pathway to success can succeed if the individual is stopped by discrimination.

In our review of issues related to human rights, empowerment and governance, we have found that the existing system can be significantly improved. Some of the tools already in place to ensure fair treatment are not functioning as well as they could be.

It is essential to make the system work better. The next United Bermuda Party Government will therefore:

• Review Human Rights legislation with a view to:
  • Enhancing the autonomy, independence and effectiveness of the Human Rights Commission, especially where it comes to investigating and acting on complaints;
  • Making it answerable directly to Parliament; and
  • Ensuring its membership reflects Bermuda.
• Reform the Immigration Department to:
  • Ensure timeliness and fairness in decision-making,
  • Raise departmental accountability through the establishment of performance standards, including turnaround times for work permits,
  • Increase staffing,
  • Establish an Immigration appeal board to handle complaints,
• Continue to have CURE measure and monitor the effectiveness of economic empowerment policies.

There are other ways the government can help Bermudians get a fair deal. The next United Bermuda Party Government will harness the support and involvement of the business community to:

Bring about career opportunities and fairness in the workplace, and to

• Ensure Bermudians have what it takes to succeed in the local economy and that businesses are ready for them.

Workforce equity is in everyone’s best interest and therefore the Board should be comprised of all stakeholders – employers and employees, Bermudian and non- Bermudian, black and white – working together. The Board’s mandate will be based on the principle of anti-discrimination and that it be available to all Bermudians in need of protection and assistance.

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The United Bermuda Party is committed to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to share in Bermuda’s economic success. Beyond helping people prepare for employment and ensuring workplace fairness, we can also empower entrepreneurs put their dreams into action.

• Commit 20% of all Government contracts – about $70 million a year– to small businesses.
• Provide training for small businesses in how to bid for government contracts.
• Better identify and communicate government needs for goods and services to aid those interested in bidding.
• Ensure that government pays its bills to contractors within 30 days.
• Better coordinate existing agencies to cut red tape and reduce compliance costs.
• Review the tax structure on small businesses to ensure fairness and encourage economic growth.
• Identify angel investors for start-up businesses in need of capital.
• Ensure that the economic development programmes in North Hamilton benefit the area’s existing business owners and residents as well as new ones; including
  • Tax relief for all residences within the zone,
  • Payroll and land tax relief for all businesses,
  • A ‘Clean and Green’ programme to address litter and pollution and increase the number of trees in the area,
  • An ‘Obsolete Property and Rehabilitation’ programme,
  • A waiver of all government fees for obtaining government permissions for the expansion and renovation of existing businesses, and a
  • Five-year relief guarantee on land tax for businesses that purchase new property within the zone, expand or upgrade their facilities, make property improvements, acquire new equipment or refinance an existing loan.