Youth Business Trust Belize receives $80,000 grant
Youth Business Trust Belize is a program offering young persons between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five assistance in starting their own businesses. The program offers loan financing, training and mentoring to help entrepreneurs become successful. But to achieve these goals, the fund needs money. And that’s where the Social Investment Fund, a statutory body under the Ministry of Economic Development steps in. This morning SIF has signed a grant of eighty thousand dollars to help YBTB continue its programs. The agreement was signed today at YBTB’s office on Albert Street. According to Shaun Finnity, Chairman of YBTB’s board of directors, the fund will help entrepreneurs and YBTB to continue in its own development.
Shaun Finnity, Chairman, Board of Directors, YBTB
“The funds from the Social Investment Fund/Basic Needs Trust Fund will be used for a project that will provide the trust with both infrastructural capacity, equipment for the office and so forth but also, probably important for training existing entrepreneurs in the program. So there are entrepreneurs who travel abroad in the region to get capacity development training on the job in some of the countries in our region that already have established businesses and sectors and we’ll also have experts come to Belize.”
Roger Bradley, Technical Officer, Social Investment Fund
“When we came we met with a sturdy board of patrons, board of directors, good leadership in miss Miranda and we went even further to meet with some of the young entrepreneurs and we realize that we had people who are skilled in their different areas. In fact one of the guys does bamboo and he does a good job but he feels a little shaky because he feels he is not certified. So we learned about the technology training at the Caribbean Development Bank and so we decided to fund the registration fee for about for or five of these young people who could actually get certified training in these designated areas through the Caribbean Development Bank.”
Shaun Finnity
“We have other funders that have been good enough to support the trust in the past and we think the Social Investment Fund really joins a long list of established donors in that regard. You ask if the money is ever enough but at least it helps out in the interim and we hope that we can form a relationship with the SIF and they can see it fit to support the trust in the future after we are successful this time around.”
Roger Bradley
“We also noted that the A/C is not working. They were in need of computers. The fact is that they are clients out there who they’ve lent money to. Sometimes they need to use the computer; some of them are poor, they don’t have their own computers. So we are equipping them with computers, a laptop, a television, so that the institute could actually do video production and show people what is actually going on. So we felt this was a really good initiative. And it’s actually helping young people who are poor, who are struggling and who want to make a better life for themselves.”
Youth Business Trust Belize follows the Youth Business International model started by Britain’s Prince Charles. The Trust is primarily funded by the Inter American Development Bank and Telemedia has also committed to assist the trust over the next few years.
