Belizean Entrepreneur Named 2022 U.S. Y-LAI Ambassador

Four young Belizean business people were selected from a pool of over two thousand to take part in an exchange program that the U.S Department of State introduced in 2015. The objective of the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (Y-LAI) is to empower entrepreneurs with the necessary training, resources and networking opportunities. Through the program, Y-Lai provides travel opportunities for between four and five weeks each year. During that time they get to collaborate with a host organization in the same field of business as theirs. This year, owner of Kaj Expressions, Khadija Assales, was one of the Belizeans who took part. She appeared with Shadel Young, the Public Engagement Assistant at the U.S. Embassy, on Open Your Eyes. Young informed that during their fellowship they had the opportunity to make a presentation about their businesses to potential investors and to propose strategies to expand their businesses. Khadija Assales won that competition and has been named the 2022 Y-LAI Ambassador. Young explained that each year, Belize is guaranteed four spots for the program.

Shadel Young

Shadel Young, Public Engagement Assistant, U.S. Embassy

“We usually have a wide range of applicants from across Belize working in different fields – all entrepreneurs – so we go through a selection process and the embassy interviews the semifinalists and then we make recommendations for those persons to participate in the program to the Y-LAI organizers. We’ve actually already selected the next cohort of fellows and they will be participating, I believe, early next year. So we will be doing recruitment for the upcoming cohort within the next few months and unfortunately, because of the COVID pandemic, the program had had to shift to virtual and then we have had to less cohort than in previous years, so there was less promotion and there was less advertisement because there was less activity taking place. Fortunately, we’re back in person and so Khadija had an in-person placement.”