On October 9th and 10th, a contingent of Guyanese creative people drawn mostly from the agro processing, dress design and craft industries will benefit from a key opportunity to display their talents and their products to a global audience and a potentially lucrative market at the Florida International Trade and Cultural Expo in Fort Lauderdale.
Unsurprisingly, the entire Guyanese contingent is looking forward to the ‘outing,’ none more so than Sandra Craig, Natasha David and Leisa Gibson, all of whom are participating in this prestigious showcasing of goods for the first time.
The three are all members of the group Women In Business which celebrates the fifth year of its existence in 2020. All agree that the Florida event could mark the start of a more focused effort next year to provide their members with higher levels of international exposure.
Each of the women has already secured a measure of success on the local market. Craig whose sauces are manufactured from an assortment of local fruit has made market inroads locally. Now completely committed to her vocation as an agro-processor she is in the process of creating a modest factory and is seeking to suitably equip it to better position her to significantly increase her output. In recent years she has had to invest significantly in enhancing her packaging and labeling, a pursuit which she says has paid off.
Known for her creation of Amerindian costumes that have become popular at pageants and festivals, David’s skills extend to the creation of traditional Amerindian craft. Persuaded that her work has become more appealing on a market that extends beyond Guyana she is hoping that both buyers and collectors at the Fort Lauderdale event will find her work sufficiently appealing to invest in partnerships that will be mutually beneficial. What Natasha is hoping for, as well, is that her unique pursuit of transforming traditional Amerindian costumes into formal dresses will also create a further commercial breakthrough for her.
No less than her counterparts Gibson is seeking to tap into what she believes could be a lucrative international market for her beauty products, not least her charcoal handmade soaps. She too, is travelling to Fort Lauderdale with an open mind, with an eye for marketing and partnership opportunities that would provide that sought-after entrepreneurial breakthrough.
It is hard to ignore the intensity of these women. They wish that the extent of official support for ventures of the kind on which they are about to embark was greater, but have clearly decided that no sleep will be lost over the fact that this is not the case. In essence, each of them has decided to take their future in business into their own hands.
