Ten women entrepreneurs graduated on Wednesday evening from the Volunteer Youth Corps’ (VYC) business initiative, a component of the group’s Women Empowerment Programme.
The project, which ran for six weeks, aimed to provide an environment for start-up business-oriented women to focus on learning financial responsibility by advising them, among other things, on how to save and keep records, draft a business plan, and register their businesses.
The women were able to meet and network with representatives from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED), the Small Business Bureau, Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as with a financial analyst.
A requirement for course completion was the presentation of business plans formulated by the participants.
Jelena Ivic, the Women’s Entrepreneurial Advisor for VYC, explained that the whole concept of the savings group was to allow the women to register themselves as a trust deed, so they would be able to save under one account, each with their own savings targets.
“There’s no actual loaning between members or anything, it’s simply every woman saving for herself and she gets that money back…We really just wanted to give them first-hand knowledge from these people themselves to see what is entailed in actually running a business and just to better prepare them for in the future if they wanted to apply for a loan,” Ivic stated.
“…when you go to IPED for example, you have the contribution, that’s 20% of the loan that you want to take out and you also have legal fees so we put this in place so the women could reach those equity contribution rates and the expenses before they can actually apply for a loan.”
The women were quite eager to share their experience of how the project benefitted them practically, touching also on their future plans now that this knowledge has been acquired.
Muna Nur has been in business since 2014, but the CEO of Elusive Events and Business Services related that being a part of the training gave her better insight into the regulations her business will be bound by and the procedures for acquiring certain business services. This new information, she said, distilled many rumours she had heard, especially in relation to the entities, GRA and NIS.
Her company Elusive Events and Business Services is a virtual office that provides a wide array of services, including administrative, personal assistance, graphic design, sales and marketing and rentals.
Latanna Brandon’s janitorial services business, which at the moment is run from her home, has been in existence for three years. Brandon, as well as her colleague, Melissa London, spoke of the wealth of knowledge they gained in book keeping and savings.
According to London, the book keeping aspect of the course resonated with her because it not only taught her management of business, but management of her home.
London, a stay-at-home mom, began baking with her husband approximately three years ago, serving clients from her home. The woman said that participating in the training course has encouraged her to rise to new levels and to continuously develop herself as an individual. As a result of this, she now has her mind set on launching a bakery within a year’s time.
“My business plan is for a bakery and I intend to start a baking shop that offers healthy bread. I mean, we know right now Guyana has a pandemic of diabetes and also people who are becoming very health conscious, so I’ll be catering for those kinds of needs for people and also variety.” Her signature bread will be one for diabetics.
Meanwhile, the facilitator of the project, Eon Stephens, of Professional Youth Alliance Guyana, commended the women on the connection they forged over the course of those six weeks.
“I’ve been hearing from you how this programme has empowered you and that’s the overall goal of this initiative—to empower women…Over the period that we’ve met, I can see a sisterhood has evolved,” Stephens stated.
The recruitment process for the next batch of participants in The Savings Group Training Initiative has already begun.
