Locals receive entrepreneurial training in business labs workshop

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – ELEVEN of the nation’s youth have walked away with innovative ideas and are eager to launch into their own businesses following a business labs workshop organised by the Young Americas Business Trust (YABT) and sponsored by the Organisation of American States (OAS).  

The weeklong workshop, which ended Friday (June 26), was facilitated by business experts from the Golda Mier Mount Carmel Training Center in Haifa, Israel and was designed specifically to encourage young business-minded individuals to start new businesses. The programme offered hands-on business training as participants brainstormed creative ideas to foster unique and viable opportunities. 

Co-facilitator and Training and Communications consultant Ofra Baram explained that the workshop came as part of the International Cooperation of the State of Israel, an operation designed to encourage international integration through key partnership and training.  

Baram stated that participants had to start their business “from the bottom up” by putting together a business plan, conceptualising business ideas and proposing strategies to attain a profitable business. She stressed the importance of having a thriving entrepreneurial spirit, adding that it holds benefits for both the individual and the economy.

“It is very important for persons to go into entrepreneurship, especially now with the hard economic situations when you can’t really find jobs. In the beginning they [participants] were reluctant because they were not sure how they can get a business off the ground in one week. But, when these young people realise that they can actually do it, they are motivated to continue,” Baram told SKNVibes in an exclusive interview following Friday’s closing ceremony.

The Israeli co-facilitator said while the workshop has no guarantee as to how many of the participants would actually start their own businesses, those in existing businesses would be more efficient and those about to start would be given a “serious push”.

In giving the featured address at the closing ceremony, OAS Representative to the Federation Starret Greene thanked Ambassador His Excellency Dr. Izben Williams for being instrumental in arranging for the workshop to be held in the Federation. 

Greene suggested that the closure of the sugar industry in 2005 ushered in a new period of “promising opportunities” for the creation of businesses in the new service-oriented economy. Such a foundation, he argued, should be supported by an “energetic and visionary business-oriented approach”, adding that this approach must be driven by an emerging business culture and facilitated within an environment of multiple incentives and a strong regulatory and legal framework.

“We should be clear. This shift to a modern economy can only remain standing if it is built on a strong entrepreneurial foundation. The need to further promote, strengthen, embrace and cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in the Federation, especially among this generation of young people, could not be more urgent,” said the OAS Representative.

The ongoing YABT programme has been undertaken in El Salvador, Panama, Bahamas, Ecuador, Colombia and Guatemala and has given much food for thought for existing and emerging businesspersons within the Federation.