The Guyana Youth Business Trust (GYBT) last year disbursed 266 loans valued at $41.13m to young entrepreneurs compared with 409 loans totalling $45m in 2005.
The poultry sector accounted for more than a third of the loans disbursed by the GYBT last year while the retail and service sectors including the Information Technology industry also accounted for a significant proportion of the loans disbursed by the organization. Last year, 45 per cent of the loans disbursed by the GYBT were allocated to women most of whom run small poultry-rearing businesses and grocery shops.
GYBT Coordinator Taryn De Mendonca told Stabroek Business that the reduced monetary value of loans disbursed last year does not necessarily mean that fewer young people are interested in business opportunities. “It may well be that many people are unaware of the GYBT and the services that it provides and that we need to do more work to publicize the organisation. De Mendonca said that the promotion of the organization is one of its major thrusts planned for 2007 and that strategies designed to achieve that goal are presently being contemplated. The GYBT is to host a seminar shortly to outline to the public the business opportunities that are available through the organisation.
According to De Mendonca, managing the operations of the GYBT continued to pose challenges in 2006. “Many of those challenges arise from the fact that we are dealing with clients who very often have a, limited asset base and that factor often makes decision-making difficult,” she said. The GYBT Coordinator told Stabroek Business that apart from its focus on disbursing loans to potential young entrepreneurs the GYBT was also concerned with the success of its mentoring programme in order to ensure that its clients secured access to the best possible technical advice. “That too, has its own challenges,” she said.
Part of the focus of the GYBT this year will be on targeting young people who are currently receiving training in technical and vocational schools. “We recognize the need to work with the local educational institutions and will be focusing on that area in the period ahead,” she added.
De Mendonca told Stabroek Business that the ability of the GYBT to expand to take in the furthest reaches of the country was constrained by its human resource limitations. She added that while the organisation’s extension programme was supported by the infrastructure provided by the Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) the demand for the services provided by the GYBT suggested that it needed to further strengthen its own outreach programme through the consolidation of its human resource base.
During last year the organization sought to refocus in emphasis on trying to create new young entrepreneurs rather than to simply support existing ones. “We were required to do much more work to get people interested in the idea,” De Mendonca said.
