OVER 100 micro and small business representatives from across Guyana are participating in a virtual workshop on Business Plan Preparation to increase their knowledge on how to establish and maintain a successful business.

The free workshop is being hosted by the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) from July 28, 2020 and runs for two days. Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle on Tuesday, IDPADA-G Programme Manager, Lyris Primo said that great interest has been shown by a number of entrepreneurs registered to participate.

“The whole intention is to get them into doing business in a more structured way so that their businesses would grow and strive,” she said. “Some micro and small businesses don’t even know about business plans. So, the idea is help them to do things in a more organised way rather than just trial and error so that they would know when they’re going off track and pull back before it’s too late. It’s helping them to define a path to success.”

As a part of its mandate, IDPADA-G works to improve the economic status of people of African descent in Guyana. One of the ways it does so is through capacity building in doing business. Through such initiatives, micro businesses can develop to small businesses and small to medium and possibly large. Meanwhile, potential businesses can get insight into what they need to do to enter the business environment the right way.

The workshop features presentations from business experts while those who attend will have the documents presented for take-away. Primo said that local assembly has held such workshops in the past, prior to COVID-19, and also saw great support and success. With the pandemic, though meeting face-to-face in large numbers is not advisable, IDPADA-G has found the benefit in utilising online platforms to meet its mandate just the same.

“When we hold these events during the day, lots of people are unable to participate because they have their businesses to run and if they don’t do business, they don’t make money. So, because it’s being done in the evening, everybody is at home, everybody is finished working and more people are available,” she explained. In the near future, the IDPADA-G plans to host other such workshops for persons in the business community who require help but lack the resources. It is likely that a financial literacy workshop is in the pipeline.

To the micro and small business who were not able to register for the workshop or were not aware that it was being held, Primo nonetheless encouraged: “You should take advantage of these opportunities because it’s not only IDPADA-G that does these kinds of things. I guess it’s only IDPADA-G that does them for free, but it’s needed and you need to be serious about doing business; serious about seeing what you do as something that is bigger than you are…it’s building something big.”

IDPADA-G was set up to craft the Guyana plan for the International Decade for people of African Descent in keeping with the provisions of the United Nation’s (UNs) resolution.