RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As young peo­ple in T&T strug­gle to find jobs, mem­bers of the di­as­po­ra are high­light­ing the po­ten­tial for re­mote job op­por­tu­ni­ties abroad. Speak­ing at the sec­ond Bi­en­ni­al Di­as­po­ra Con­fer­ence held at San Fer­nan­do City Hall on Fri­day, Dr An­dre Phillips, founder of the Train­ba­go Di­as­po­ra Out­reach Net­work, em­pha­sised the po­ten­tial shift from “Brain Drain to Brain Gain” for T&T.

“The brain drain has been on­go­ing for many years, span­ning five decades of heavy mi­gra­tion,” Phillips not­ed. He added, “The op­por­tu­ni­ties in the coun­try need to be im­proved to cap­ture the skill sets and work­flows of our peo­ple.”

By lever­ag­ing dual cit­i­zen­ship, Dr Phillips sug­gest­ed, lo­cals can cre­ate their own flex­i­ble work en­vi­ron­ments, al­low­ing in­di­vid­u­als to con­tribute to T&T’s de­vel­op­ment with­out per­ma­nent­ly re­turn­ing.

“This will en­cour­age dual work re­la­tion­ships, al­low­ing in­di­vid­u­als to take sab­bat­i­cals and come back for short stints to en­hance the knowl­edge trans­fer of skills in T&T,” he rec­om­mend­ed.

He al­so sug­gest­ed sig­nif­i­cant changes to the ed­u­ca­tion­al sys­tem, say­ing stu­dents should fo­cus on build­ing the Or­ange Econ­o­my, which em­pha­sis­es the de­vel­op­ment of cre­ative skills.

“The ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is in con­tin­u­ous evo­lu­tion. We have found our­selves plac­ing peo­ple in cruise ship jobs be­cause we do not have a dy­nam­ic hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor. Be­fore, we had agri­cul­tur­al pro­grammes. Now, Dis­ney is hir­ing our lo­cals. They are ab­sorb­ing the spare ca­pac­i­ty that ex­ists be­cause we do not have a vi­brant hos­pi­tal­i­ty sec­tor,” he not­ed.

High­light­ing the cre­ative sec­tor’s po­ten­tial, Phillips said, “Apart from hos­pi­tal­i­ty, we need to de­vel­op the cre­ative sec­tor. Peo­ple can en­gage in mu­sic pro­duc­tion, pub­lish­ing, and vi­su­al arts roles, earn­ing in­come while still liv­ing here. They can earn mon­ey in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and stay in Trinidad. Look at the kind of wins you have with the part­ner­ships of ex­ist­ing di­as­po­ra peo­ple.”

Mean­while, Jew­el Ali, head of the Of­fice of In­ter­na­tion­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Mi­gra­tion in T&T, echoed Phillips’ sen­ti­ments, stress­ing the end­less op­por­tu­ni­ties abroad due to glob­al­i­sa­tion.

“For the coun­try, there are so many ways the di­as­po­ra can con­tribute,” Ali said. “Our Car­ni­val is the best in the world, and we have many mu­si­cians. An­oth­er area is en­tre­pre­neur­ship and busi­ness, with op­por­tu­ni­ties to sell our snacks in oth­er coun­tries.”

Ali em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of struc­tured ap­proach­es to har­ness the di­as­po­ra’s po­ten­tial, start­ing with a na­tion­al Di­as­po­ra Pol­i­cy, which the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs has al­ready draft­ed.

“It is im­por­tant to have a struc­tured ap­proach to the di­as­po­ra, and it starts with hav­ing a pol­i­cy,” she ex­plained.

“Be­yond that, we need to put a lot in place to har­ness the di­as­po­ra’s po­ten­tial. There are reg­istries at the con­sulates through­out the world, but one chal­lenge is to en­sure these data­bas­es re­main up­dat­ed.”

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris al­so high­light­ed the grow­ing trac­tion of re­mote work.

“I know some­one per­son­al­ly who makes mon­ey from a Cana­di­an firm of­fer­ing net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties from the Unit­ed States, Unit­ed King­dom, and the Caribbean,” Par­ris shared.

“We cre­ate a nexus to cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

Par­ris not­ed var­i­ous re­mote job op­por­tu­ni­ties were avail­able, in­clud­ing sec­re­tari­at roles and voiceover work.

“Ad­ver­tis­ing agen­cies abroad want lo­cal voic­es, and those are the things that peo­ple can make mon­ey from abroad,” he added.

“There are not enough im­ages with au­then­tic Trinidad pho­tographs for stock pho­tog­ra­phy. It could ben­e­fit our lo­cal econ­o­my as well.”