Trust of the Americas Launch DIA Lab Belize

Democratizing Innovation in the Americas (D.I.A.) is one of two main programs under the Trust for the Americas. And today, the Trust officially launched its D.I.A. Youth Innovation Lab in Belize. The objective behind the initiative is to build a network of youths from across the country that will be trained to create solutions and improve governance and innovation in their communities. Youths who participate in the initiative will be encouraged to identify challenges within their communities, before gaining the necessary skills to create solutions through entrepreneurship. The program’s mission is to offer forty hours of training over the course of three months on specialized topics. At the end, participants will be able to access seed funding for a business start up. The launch was held this afternoon at the U.W.I. Open Campus in Belize City.

Audrey Robin

Audrey Robin, Local Coordinator, Trust for the Americas Belize

“We are going to provide forty hour training for ten weeks in Belize City and in the country of Belize. This training is going to benefit one hundred and fifty youths. We are going to open up other activities, workshops, digital training, entrepreneurship training, in the country of Belize through the D.I.A. Lab in Belize City, but also other partnering facilities throughout every district of Belize. The youths in a lot of countries now, especially with the pandemic, has been out of school. There are very committed to learn, they want to learn especially in those digital areas. Unfortunately, sometimes the schools are not able to provide with those training. We hope that we can compliment these needs by providing this additional support for youths to be able to develop either a venture but also a project. They can come to the Idea Lab in Belize City which is at U.W.I. Open Campus, but if they want to reach outside of Belize City they can reach out to our Facebook page at DIALABBelize.”