Today 15 entrepreneurs participated in day 1 of a 5-day "train the trainers" session at the Department of Youth Services. A consultant from the CARICOM based Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunities agency (CEBO) is in Belize for the entire month to facilitate the training. We stopped by to find out more about the discussion topics and why it is important to empower youth through entrepreneurship.
Aida Escobar, Communications Officer, Department of Youth Services
"So about 5 years ago CEBO reached out to our department of youth services, they reached out to all the youth services or however they are called in the countries in the Caribbean and their goal is to just give youth the skills that they need to become entrepreneurs to start their own business so when they reached out to us 5 years ago, they came and they did a training of trainers, they have done follow ups and now they are here again trying to continue that partnership with us."
Richard Berwick, Regional Consultant, CEBO
"Today what we are doing is we are doing a training of trainers because in the coming weeks there will be more workshops that will happen and we are going to need the support at the national level so some of the things we are covering is we are giving scope to or a greater understanding of what CARICOM is because Belize is a full-fledged member of CARICOM."
"The emphasis is predominantly on helping youth to help themselves so we have thematic areas of the CSME, not everybody wants to be a doctor, teacher, lawyer and the space is just not there if we only had thumbs we would still have a problem and if we only had index fingers we would still have a problem so everything has a function and to be an active and productive component to society we need that diversity for the ecosystem to function so we are doing CSME, the skill certificate, we are talking about business plan generation, we are talking about conflict management, conflict resolution, we are talking about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, how do we satisfy those, when do we really find self-actualization, customer service, business etiquette you name it we are trying to cover it."
Armando Perez, Participant/Owner, A&S Covers
"Right now what we are working on is basically a simulation of creating a business and we have to go through the steps of applying for a loan and then we have to generate income and re-pay that loan by the end of the week so it is a challenge and I like that challenge so definitely will be here for the completion of it."
The next series of training will take place on October 14th but that one is specifically for youth deportees who are looking for a fresh start now that they are back in Belize. The final training will be held October 21st. If you are between the ages of 15 and 29 and want to participate you can contact the department of youth services at 207-0770 or go to their office on Regent Street.
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