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Rethinking workforce development in the Delta ... Workforce training programs include entrepreneur and plasticulture programs.

Article Excerpt
GREENVILLE -- The low-skill factory jobs are gone, and they aren't coming back. So, how do you replace those jobs in order to improve the economy of one of the lowest income areas of the country, the Mississippi Delta?

One way is to encourage entrepreneurship, said Cornelius Jones, president of the Mississippi Action for Community Education Inc. (MACE), a non-profit, minority rural development organization created by community leaders in 1967 to stimulate physical, social and economic development in the rural Mississippi Delta.

Jones said the idea of the entrepreneurial training program is encouraging people who have lost jobs because of plant closings to concentrate on other skills they have to create self-employment opportunities. In 2003 48 people graduated from the entrepreneur program, and nine have started their own business.

"We had one young man who was working in a factory," Jones said. "We helped him get some lawn mowers, and now he has a landscaping business cutting grass and manicuring lawns. We have another woman who set up a laundromat and restaurant. It makes a lot of sense in these small towns. Generally while people are washing, they will eat something....

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