The Manitoba government is providing three years of funding for Local Investment Toward Employment (LITE).
Premier Greg Selinger made the announced Friday morning during LITE’s annual Wild Blueberry Pancake Breakfast.
“This funding allows LITE to build partnerships so that social enterprises, co-ops and businesses with a social mandate can provide good jobs for individuals facing barriers to employment,” Selinger said.
“It is by partnering with organizations like LITE and investing in ideas that work that we will reduce poverty, build capacity and create jobs.”
LITE executive director Anne Lindsey says the funding will help the Social Purchasing Portal, which promotes business and purchasing to benefit the community, the local economy and the environment, including hiring people who face barriers to employment.
“The SPP is a proven and practical demonstration of how social purchasing can be promoted and be successful at the community level,” she said.
