Entrepreneurship camp for students

The Division of Finance is hosting 80 students at a two-week business camp to build entrepreneurial minds among Tobago youth.

The camp, You-Biz, which began on Monday, and is being hosted by the hosted by the Enterprise Hub in collaboration with Division’ Financial Literacy Secretariat, has targeted students for the camp taking place at the Victor E Bruce Financial Complex in Scarborough.

Over the two-week period, participants will learn the entrepreneurial mindset, registering a business, positive risk taking, the art of selling, planning for success, managing cash, getting finance, presentation skills, as well as team building and interpersonal relations.

Explaining the goal of the camp, Programme Coordinator at the Financial Literacy Secretariat, Afeisha McKain said:

“We are trying to build entrepreneurial mindsets in our young people and given the state of the economy and given that we need to start to build the entrepreneurial sector, we want to start to move into the habit of not just thinking that you should go to school and get a job but getting into business is also a viable option.”

McKain said that the camp was oversubscribed as over 100 persons registered for it, but only 80 were finally selected, from an initial target of 60 persons.

Lead consultant at Enterprise Hub and facilitator of the programme, John Charles, describing the camp as the first of its kind in Tobago, said the aim was to unlock the entrepreneurial potential so the young people could apply what they learn and contribute to economic development in their communities and the island as a whole.

“We’ve decided that it must be done in Tobago as we see gaps in the system and there is a definite need for the youth to start to think differently, so that they would be able to start to deliver different things to society. It is bringing them out of the mindset to get passes and just get a job, redoing the cycle over and over. It is really about changing the mindset and been able to develop individuals who are game changers in society,” he said.

“We would introduce the students to entrepreneurial thinking/mindset, behaviours, techniques and traits (including traits they already possess) and how to identify it in themselves and their peers,” he said.

“We have talent here in Tobago, I have seen it and this is what I have been doing; I have gone to schools and I have seen what the education system is producing, the programmes that the Education Division have put in place but there needs to be people who will make those programmes a success and this is what we are trying to develop,” he added.