Hello Everyone!
Today we are excited to share more about the Hi Love Brand story, the inspiration behind the name, and an organization that is very near to our hearts, the Centre for Training and Innovation’s Harbour Island Trade School (CTI HITS).
Every year, Hi Love supports education on the island through a limited-edition product campaign. This year, the campaign donates 5% of sales of our Harbour Island Beach Pack to the CTI HITS, the first satellite campus of CTI. Located in Harbour Island next to the Rock House, the campus focuses primarily on the delivery of culinary and electrical trade skills, both of which are in demand on the island. One of the main goals of the campus, as noted by the CEO Shaun Ingraham, is the delivery of world-class culinary instruction which will help to cement Harbour Island’s position as a food mecca in The Bahamas.
Interested in learning more about CTI?
The Centre for Training & Innovation (CTI), was birthed from One Eleuthera Foundation in 2015 with the launch of a short General Maintenance course in partnership with Bahamas Technical & Vocational Institute (BTVI) and other stakeholders . Nearly 100 Eleutherans participated in plumbing, carpentry, tiling and electrical installation courses.
CTI is registered with the National Accreditation and Equivalency Council of The Bahamas (NAECOB) and programs provided by the institution are approved by NAECOB.
CTI is comprised of the school itself as well as a hotel, restaurant, farm where students learn skills on the job, and an enterprise center that was created to assist with small business (new and existing) development, capacity building, and expansion.
A unique offering of CTI will center on providing students with coaching and mentoring to assist them with their educational, personal and economic goals. CTI is a place where students can grow and develop, and become better citizens; contributing to building a vibrant economy for the island of Eleuthera and The Bahamas.
Rationale: Nearly 50% of seniors at public high schools in The Bahamas do not meet the requirements to graduate with a diploma, and are instead awarded leaving certificates which hold no value. A survey of one particular high school on Eleuthera revealed that 70% of its students did not graduate in 2015.
In The Bahamas unemployment rose from 10% in 2005 to 15.7% in 2014 and youth unemployment doubled to 30.8% since 2001. On Eleuthera, where CTI is based, unemployment is estimated to be as high as 70% in some areas, according to the Eleuthera Master Plan 2005.
We believe that these two factors (under education and unemployment) are contributors to poverty and crime. Poverty is correspondingly disproportionately high, with poverty on Eleuthera, reported in The State of the Nation Report to be as high as 20.3% against the country’s approximately 13% rate in 2014.
According to statistics, education, unemployment, poverty and crime are all linked. Lack of education, can result in a persons’ inability to find employment. Lack of employment can lead to poverty and further result in persons indulging in criminal activity to meet their basic human needs. One Eleuthera Foundation believes that addressing the need for education, training and employment will, overtime, improve issues of poverty and crime.
Learn more about Harbour Island in this tribute article, where five notable locals show us around the islands.
