Ke­jan Haynes

The Pan Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion re­cent­ly con­clud­ed a sev­en-week busi­ness plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment course which was open to T&T na­tion­als and refugees and mi­grants as well.

The course, which start­ed in April, pro­vid­ed the 19 par­tic­i­pants with busi­ness skills, knowl­edge, and re­sources.

The course al­so grant­ed par­tic­i­pants ac­cess to seed cap­i­tal fund­ing to sup­port the launch or growth of their small busi­ness ven­tures re­lat­ed to health and fit­ness, cos­me­tol­ogy, food and bev­er­age, hand­made jew­ellery, and ac­ces­sories, ap­pli­ance re­pair, and event man­age­ment sec­tors.

“This busi­ness de­vel­op­ment train­ing and coach­ing work­shop al­lowed our busi­ness to be­come more in­no­v­a­tive, en­tre­pre­neur­ial, and com­pet­i­tive, which can cre­ate val­ue and gen­er­ate high-qual­i­ty, re­ward­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Uti­liz­ing a busi­ness de­vel­op­ment plan al­lows us to make tan­gi­ble progress in sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the suc­cess of our busi­ness,” said Kevin Pul, course par­tic­i­pant.

The course was or­gan­ised by the Pan Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (PADF) to­geth­er with the UN Refugee Agency (UN­HCR) and fund­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) un­der the “In­clu­sive Cities, Com­mu­ni­ties of Sol­i­dar­i­ty” project.

The course ad­dressed needs and gaps shared by as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neurs, such as the en­tre­pre­neur­ial mind­set, val­ue propo­si­tion, in­no­va­tion, fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, mar­ket­ing strate­gies, busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and ne­go­ti­a­tion. Each par­tic­i­pant re­ceived tai­lored men­tor­ship to sup­port the de­vel­op­ment of per­son­al­ized busi­ness plans to guide their analy­sis of lo­cal mar­ket con­di­tions and de­vel­op fea­si­ble, rel­e­vant, and sus­tain­able busi­ness plans.

Pro­gram Man­ag­er, Pan Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (PADF), Han­nah Kat­wa­roo, said, “Cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties that sup­port the start-up and ex­pan­sion of prof­itable small busi­ness ven­tures among refugees, mi­grants, and lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers can pos­i­tive­ly di­ver­si­fy and trans­form the lo­cal econ­o­my.

Through­out the train­ing pro­gram, all trainees were ea­ger to de­sign and op­er­ate rel­e­vant busi­ness­es that are re­spon­sive to our lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties' needs. There­fore, a great mea­sure of com­mit­ment and care­ful thought was placed in­to this learn­ing process, and we ex­pect to wit­ness the re­sults of in­creased busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties, progress, and in­clu­sion among these as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neurs over the next few months.”