We Want Justice! It’s increasingly the most common cry of the ordinary Jamaican citizen since the turn of the twenty first century. The country’s justice system has come under intense scrutiny in recent years and is considered by many to be inefficient, costly, inaccessible, and ill-equipped to properly serve the needs of modern day Jamaica.
For one young woman, the challenges of Jamaica’s justice system have presented an opportunity in social entrepreneurship, which she believes may be the impetus for a much needed social revolution. According to Yaneek Page, Managing Director of Future Services International Ltd, “Jamaica needs a social revolution of sorts; we need justice, we need a fair society, THIS will enable our citizens to live in peace so that they may focus on the pursuit of prosperity and happiness. The spin-off effects of an effective justice system are many and far reaching, but one certain possibility worth mentioning is a dramatic decrease in crime and violence.”
The goal of Future Services International Limited is to make the pursuit of justice more accessible for as many Jamaicans as possible by financing meaningful civil lawsuits and assisting them in getting their cases together in a timely fashion to make it easier for their attorneys to take action.
Page, who is still in her twenties, came up with the business idea while she was a graduate student of the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, UWI. “One of my courses covered Restorative Justice and the positive impact it had on some families in Canada, and that got me thinking about our own flawed system of Justice in Jamaica. I truly believe that the inaccessibility of justice has hindered our social and economic growth and development, among others.”
Although young, Yaneek Page has considerable professional and entrepreneurial experience, and has many achievements to her credit.
At 17 she was an enterprising entrepreneur, opening a beauty and spa store in Kingston. She has worked as a Teaching & Research Assistant at the Department of Management Studies, UWI, and a Policy Analyst at the Planning Institute of Jamaica. In 2005 she was recruited to GraceKennedy’s esteemed Accelerated Development Programme for dynamic young professionals. She spent two years with the company, where she focused on risk management for companies in the Food and Financial Divisions.
She was the 2003 recipient of the Sir Arthur Lewis Scholarship which allowed her to pursue a Master of Science Degree in Social Policy at the University of the West Indies. She graduated as the top student for the year 2004, copping awards for the Most Outstanding Research Paper, the Most Outstanding Social Policy Student, and the Overall Most Outstanding Student and Award of Degree with Distinction. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Studies and Psychology, is a Certified Business Resilience Manager, and an Enterprise Risk Management Practitioner.
Future Services International Ltd. is perhaps the most revolutionary business to open its doors in Jamaica since the start of the year. The company provides a win/win solution for litigants, their attorneys, the justice system, and the society as a whole, as justice is placed within the reach and realm of Jamaicans who need and deserve it, but over the years have been unable to afford it.
The company which is headquartered in Linstead, St. Catherine and will soon open its doors to residents of Kingston & St. Andrew and Montego Bay.
