In order for businesswomen in Guyana to grow they need to see each other as partners and collaborate instead of just competitors and to “look at the bigger picture of things and not be small minded,” Lucia L Desir says.
“We also have to get to a stage where you overlook petty things. You cannot allow yourself to be caught up with the small things… Look to the bigger picture and find a way to work and see the bigger picture…,” she said to the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
Desir, who along with Barbara Dublin-Peterkin, recently formed the Guyana Chapter of the Women Entrepreneurs’ Network Caribbean (WEN Caribbean), hopes that their work with the network would see women in business moving forward and more scope for women in the world of business being created in another 20 years.
Desir, Managing Director of D & J Shipping Service and Dublin-Peterkin, CEO of B’s Beauty and Naturopathic Centre and Visions of Excellence Personal Development Centre, represented Guyana at the Caribbean Women Entrepreneurs’ Forum in Washington DC in March 2012, sponsored by the US Department of State’s Global Women’s Issues Division.Following the forum they joined with Caribbean counterparts to establish the Women Entrepreneurs Network Caribbean (WEN Caribbean) last year. The Guyana chapter is now part of this broader regional network.
Speaking to this newspaper, Desir said that more and more women are moving into business and she was heartened that at the launch of WEN the programmes and banners were done by a woman, the chairperson was a woman, and the minister who delivered the feature address was a woman.
“That was really heartwarming and we did not have to put much effort to get these women; it is just that we needed those services and they were right there,” she said.
There are a lot of women in business and Desir noted that some of them have been forced into it because of economic constraints and it has worked for some while for others it failed.
“When a woman is involved in business she changes her whole family life, her children most times will get a better education, she is able to feed them and she is able to give a quality life not only to her direct family but also to her extended family,” Desir said.
She pointed out that there are more women going to university, more women being outspoken, more women in politics and as such families are changing.
However, on the flip side, Desir acknowledged the argument that this leads to a breakdown in family life and sometimes children are left to raise themselves with their mothers being busy around the clock in the world of business. She noted that in the past this situation would have been cushioned by the extended family pitching in, but this has been phasing out in recent years and Desir feels, “we need to get back to that.
“More children are indeed left unattended and what is really important when that happens is that the values that would have been implanted into those children have to guide them in the absence of their parents,” Desir posited.
Desir is of the firm view that once proper values are instilled the child would be fine, while expressing the opinion that those who “go astray” would have been given “too much of a leeway at an early age and they were not given the real wrath of discipline.
“I came from a family where the real wrath of discipline was instituted, not only by my mother and my father but by my uncles who I have great respect for onto now. So I am one of those parents who feel that children should really be disciplined heavily [and I] believe in corporal punishment because it was administered to me and all my brothers and sisters and none of us have gone astray and I have given it to my kids,” Desir said.
Countering the argument that corporal punishment can affect children even into adulthood, Desir said that neither she nor her siblings have any psychological problems, but she added that she would not advocate children being abused.
WEN
Desir said being a part of WEN comes with ease for her as she is always helping especially if it results in persons growing. This also a passion for Dublin-Peterkin and with the two of them teaming up it is expected that the network will go places.
They are in the process of setting up a secretariat with a small grant from the US government but the network is in its embryonic stage. They have to work on the network sustaining itself after the initial grant would have been exhausted.
The network plans to employ someone with keen interest in this area to travel throughout the country to ascertain the needs of women which would then be reported to them and training programmes would be patterned off the reports. Apart from herself and Dublin-Peterkin, Desir said they would also appoint a board of directors.
“We wish first to establish branches throughout Guyana because women organisations in Guyana are not only in Georgetown but in several regions… and for those organisations which already exist, we are going to collaborate with them,” Desir said.
The network is aware that from region to region the training needs would be different as Desir pointed out farmers may just know to plant but they would need assistance to market their produce and they would provide that assistance.
“We can take every woman’s business to the next level,” the businesswoman said but she cautioned that this would not be done in the short term. However, they have started because they foresee making a difference in the world of women in business.
She said they have seen the need for such a network and are going forward with the support of the US Embassy, another company and they hope the government. But the network and the businesses it will be involved with would also have to dig deep to keep it going.
“Together I see if working, it is not easy but like everything else, life is not easy so we have to make it work,” an optimistic Desir said.
Business
Desir has been in the shipping business for about 30 years, starting out as an employee but later branching off with a colleague to start a shipping company.
It may have been by chance she got into the shipping business, but Desir said over time she “fell in love” with the job and it was after ten years that she branched off with her former business partner.
“When I went work with that company it should have been temporary but then I fell in love with it and I stayed with it and then I pursued further studies in that area and I am here forever it appears,” she said in the interview.
After she parted ways with her former business partner, Desir said, she focused and developed her company noting that when they separated the company only had three persons in its employ and today there are 17 persons working with the company. She said the company ships anything and it has a number of representatives in North America and other parts of the world and “they ship for us, we ship for them”. It also does packing and moving, custom brokerage and almost everything in the shipping business.
While she is the Managing Director of the company, Desir said, she gets some “flex time” as she has a corps of competent staff who have been working with the company for some time.
A wife and a mother of three sons, Desir said she managed her family life by planning and catered for things that were not part of the plan but popped up from time to time.
“It is all about organising, you have to do some planning…,” she stressed, noting that her three sons would have kept her busy but now they are all grown and are integrally involved in the business.
Apart from her own business, Desir has also joined with some other women to form a company named the Bag Bay Inc, which is involved in selling biodegradable products in an effort to rid of the country of Styrofoam boxes and plastic bags. She admits that they are still “struggling to get it off the ground” but persons are purchasing the bags and boxes and with some more work they would move forward. The group is also involved in clean up campaigns in an effort to get rid of the garbage in the city.
“We are working along with that to turn a new page in Guyana, back to paper bags instead of plastic,” she said.
