By Naomi Marshall
THE youths of Linden are now inspired to become entrepreneurs after last week’s Soap Making Course which was held by the Connection Youth Group under the theme “The best way to predict your future is to create it”.

The course which ran for a period of five days in the mining town of Linden saw the participation of 25 youths, ages 18 to 25 who were eager and excited to know the soap making process.

Conducting the course was chemist and entrepreneur, Melissa Younge, who co-owns the Tidy Up Detergent Refill Centre in Diamond, East Bank Demerara.
Oleka Headley, 18, one who benefitted from the Soap Making Course and plans to have her own soap business said that she grabbed the opportunity to be a part of the course, since a lot of courses of this kind are not kept in the town.

The aspiring entrepreneur and geologist said, “I plan on making soap and if possible, giving the space of time and practising making my own stuff, I could do exactly what the woman is doing; spreading her knowledge and so on. I plan actually to open a little small business, however, I wanna do this but some of the utensils are kind of expensive.”

Headley also added that she would like to see Guyana becoming self-sufficient.
“To me also Guyana we are very dependent. We import soap from all over and the fact that we know that some people know how to make these things, we as Guyanese should give exposure more to the people that know how to do these kind of things in Guyana and we could even get our own factory and so on that can make these soap instead of importing these stuff when we have the ingredients right here in Guyana to make them,” she noted.

According to Terry Fortune, Coordinator of the Connection Youth Group, the group is attempting to develop the skills and talent of young people in different and extraordinary ways through the use of diverse strategies.

He added: “We had and we have and we continue trying to bring different strategies and different ways on how to get the youths off the street and getting them involved in different ventures.”

The Connection Youth Group was formed officially in April of 2018 and will be conducting a number of other training throughout the year, targeting the communities within Region 10.
“I will advise the youth of linden to get involved with Connection Youth Group; we are here to create that opportunity and let us make Linden great again,” Fortune encouraged.
The Soap Making Course was sponsored by the Small Business Bureau which aims to promote entrepreneurship.