FIVE youths were, on Friday, awarded cash grants from the International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly – Guyana (IDPADA-G) to invest in their businesses.

According to a release, Clinton Samuels of COBBEC Vision received $500,000; Earlecia Hieronymo of Khayr Organics – $250,000; Brian Smith of Dragonfly Geospatial Aerial Productions – $150,000; Jermaine Hall of Country Boy Farming Supplies – $75,000; and Delon Simpson of Kukki Aquaculture – $50,000.

These youths were the top five winners from IDPADA-G’s Youth Committee Second Annual Invest-A-Thon/Pitch Competition, which ran for a three-week period and ended on May 1, 2022.
Some 54 youths from across Guyana with businesses and ideas needing investment opportunities applied to take part in the competition, from which 20 were selected to advance to a preliminary round to pitch their businesses in front of a panel of judges, after which the Top 5 winners were selected based on their scores submitted by the judges, the release noted.

At the prize-giving ceremony held at the secretariat of IDPADA-G, Chair of the Youth Committee, Ascena Jacobs explained that the initiative was birthed after realising the lack of access to funding opportunities for start-up businesses.

“We know businesses have a hard time, especially young people, acquiring capital from the bank to start their business. Some persons may not have an established business, but they have an idea, and are not able to take that idea off the ground without money. So this initiative was birthed because of that — awarding winning contestants cash prizes to take their businesses to the next level, or take their business idea off the ground,” Jacobs said.