Ten micro-entrepreneurs from across the country yesterday received $1M each under a Chilean government-funded programme to start various projects, which, among other things aims to curb hunger in the areas where they live.
Under the ‘Enhancing the Economic Livelihood of Poor in Guyana’ programme, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) yesterday handed out $10M in vouchers to hopeful small-business owners.
“Lindeners are exploited by the sellers who charge them more than two times the price for fish and meat products so I am glad that my business will help where they can access, especially fish at far reduced prices,” new mother Sherene Niles told Stabroek News as she nursed her four-week-old baby. She and nine other beneficiaries were present at the handing over of the grants which was held at the Ministry of Business, South Road, Georgetown.
In May last year, the then Ministry of Tourism, which acted as the representative of Guyana and the Chilean government via the UNDP, entered into an agreement to aid in the eradication of extreme hunger and poverty in select rural communities in Guyana, through the implementation of a US$200,000 collaborative project.
The project was developed after the submission of proposals from the Government of Guyana to the Chilean government which was initiated in late 2013.
Acting UNDP resident representative Reuben Robertson explained that it was his organisation’s hope that the entrepreneurs’ projects will contribute to the country’s sustainable development goals. He added that the project would also help in eradicating hunger and poverty and achieving improved food security and nutrition.
“It is our hope that these grants will improve livelihoods and increase household incomes for the beneficiaries and their dependents. It is hoped that the grants will change the lives of the women and the men from the various regions represented here today,” he stated.
He later explained that the beneficiaries of the grant are made up of “entrepreneurial poor, defined as the rural poor who had some business potential…and who, if supported, could promote self-employment and micro enterprises.” Robertson also noted that disadvantaged women, unemployed and underemployed youth and graduate apprentices were targeted under the project.
The project is divided into three components: supporting Guyana through South-South Policy dialogue on policy options for reducing poverty; supporting cottage and linkage industries in selected rural communities; and to identify and enhance alternative coping strategies for the poor.
Minister of Business Dominic Gaskin, who spoke briefly at the handing over ceremony, urged the entrepreneurs to use the monies afforded to them well. “You have been given an opportunity most micro and small businesses will never have…stick to your plans, don’t be distracted for you have put a lot of effort into it,” he urged.
This was echoed by Chilean Ambassador to Guyana Claudio Rojas who told the recipients that economic growth will equip them with new funds and they can then expand and develop their businesses.
Expanding and developing is just what 31-year-old Lokesh Gopee of Cotton Tree, Berbice plans to do. He told Stabroek News that while many of his fellow villagers are cash crop farmers, they have to travel long distances to purchase seedlings. “Plenty people, nearly everybody ah farm in the village but we have to go far to buy seedling. My plan is to open Vicky’s Evergreen Plantshop where I will sell seedlings to farmers sometimes at a lesser cost than where they have to travel far fuh go,” Gopee said proudly.
He has already drawn up his proposal and is eager to get started and, moreso, planting as he too is a farmer.
A beaming Rohini Mangal, 19, plans to work alongside her father Tikaram Mangar to start a banana and plantain farm which they hope can supply villagers on the Essequibo Coast. “I am a teenager and a girl but I like farming. He will help me and we will farm banana and plantain,” she asserted.
She is not the only entrepreneur who plans to use knowledge from their father and create their own business as 27-year-old Zoey Williams explained: “I saw the advertisement for proposals in the newspaper, I think this January and I applied because my father used to rear poultry and I learned a lot from him.
“My plan is to begin maybe late December but I have already put startup plans on stream. People already know my father and he had good customers so I know I will be successful,” Williams added.
