The emergence of the Sunbeam Career Development organization in Guyana is one of the more recent indicators of the preparedness of young, innovative Guyanese to conceptualise then actualise initiatives that can be game-changers in the country’s search for skills that can help bring developmental aspirations to fruition.
Conceptualised by thirty-year-old Elon Alonzo, Sunbeam Career Development, its creator says, is a ‘For Youth, By Youth’ on-line organisation that seeks to “buck the trend of high unemployment among young people in Guyana.”
In a Brief prepared for the Stabroek Business, Elon says that Sunbeam Development is dedicated to providing “adaptable learning and development for young people in order to anchor them to their chosen career paths.” It is the belief of the organization,” she says, that every youth should be given the chance to ‘Let their Lights Shine’ by ‘beginning with the End in Mind.”
The organisation’s key objective is to “develop self-managers capable of transitioning from education to employment and being able to impact the labour market.”
Sunbeam Career Development was crafted out of research conducted on how career planning and employability can help mitigate youth unemployment in the Caribbean. The research exercise revealed, among other things, that young people across the region, despite what, frequently, had been the benefit of a sound formal education, still felt ill-prepared for the world of work. Arising out of this revelation Elon moved to press her own training in Project Management, Public Sector Management and Business Development into service, collaborating with other similarly inclined persons, to develop programmes designed to help introduce “employability skills” to young Guyanese.
Elon says that a six-day training exercise that attracted more than seventy five young persons from across the country seeks to provide “sustainable solutions to the problem of successfully transitioning from education to employment.” It was this initial exercise, she said, that led to the launch of an initiative to market the Sunbeam Career Jumpstart Package, which she describes as “a suite of courses designed to give Millennials and Gen Z individuals a headstart in discovering and designing their career paths.”
Sunbeam Career Jumpstart offers a six-week on-line programme that seeks not just to equip participants with skills that parallel their particular aptitudes, but also to create a mindset that helps to propel them in the direction of “skills building” in their chosen fields. The programme, she adds, is “self-directed,” marrying two coaching sessions to offer what she describes as “a deep dive personalized to the goals and aspiration of each client.”
During a conversation with the Stabroek Business, Elon says that part of the end objective of the programme is to seek, as far as possible, to marry the desires of the programme participants with some of the critical skills needs of the country. “It’s not just about providing education purely for the sake of doing so,” she adds.
Sunbeam can be reached on telephone 6414342, or on Facebook at Sunbeam Career Development. Information on Sunbeam can be found by visiting www.iamsunbeam.org.
Sunbeam Career Development can be reached at:
E Mail: sunbeammentorship@gmail.com
