A fifth form Mackenzie High School (MHS) student has won a youth business challenge organized by youth advocate Carwyn Holland.
Judges were impressed with Dacia Hamilton’s business idea of a Job Recruitment Agency and gave her the nod for the top spot. The business student’s model was seen as the most feasible of those presented and she won for herself a cash prize of $20,000.
Holland, who is a product of the MHS, has launched a number of community-based projects in the mining town targeting mainly the youth.
He told Stabroek News on Saturday that the challenge was organized on the spot after he heard during an interaction with students that the main concern of most Linden youth is the lack of jobs, which was leading to low self-esteem, depression and social ills.
During the interaction, he shared his own experiences as a teenager growing up in the mining town and the struggles he faced which led to him starting his own small business at the tender age of thirteen.
He reminded the students that it was up to them to turn their difficulties and struggles into pillars of success.
Holland told Stabroek News that he recalled to the students that it was his experiences playing cricket for the Police Youth Club and the earning of a small weekly stipend of $3,000 that led to the idea of investing in sweets for sale at school as a means of having cash during the weekdays. This venture along with the drawing of portraits for a fee, he said helped him out greatly and made him comfortable from a financial standpoint.
“The ideas of youths should never be crushed by the system of society, but it must be allowed to be birthed as it’s always fresh and unique. Linden is full of talented youths and I’m sure I can discover some,” Holland said.
He used the occasion to challenge the students to come up with a feasible business idea in 20 minutes; hence the creation of the youth business challenge.
Fourth Form student Isaiah Adams of the Agriculture Science Department came in second for his cash crop production idea.
There was a third place tie between Madena Archer and Amiss La Rose whose ideas were the building of a recycling plant and a cash crop business respectively.
Holland stated that this experience has left him encouraged to start an annual regional and a national business challenge for youths in Linden and Guyana at large.
