Young Jamaican entrepreneurs earn awards at int'l conference

Two students from inner-city communities in Kingston brought home accolades from the 41st annual Next Generation Leaders' Forum in Ontario, Canada, last week.

Twenty-two-year-old Damion Laylor, from Allman Town, and Jerome Cowan, 21, from Parade Gardens, put their leadership skills and business acumen on display at the week-long conference featuring more than 150 participants from 22 different countries.

The two young men, who are participants in the Obra-Youth Upliftment Through Employment (YUTE) project, Youth Employ-ability and Entrepreneurship Training - implemented by RISE Life Management Services - led groups during the conference's Ultimate Business Challenge.

Laylor and his group earned honours for global vision and Inspiration, while Cowan and his group picked up the award for leadership in technology.

Both students have recently started small businesses with peers from their respective communities as part of the project. They earned a spot at the international conference by finishing in the top five of a Jamaica-wide entrepreneurship competition in June operated by Junior Achievement Jamaica, which along with RISE is one of the 22 members of the Obra Caribbean Partnership.

Networked

In addition to the Ultimate Business Challenge, the two entrepreneurs networked with fellow young business owners and listened to prominent keynote speakers, including founder and chairman of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Isadore Sharpe.

"A lot of these speakers came from difficult situations," said Laylor, who is the president of Knowledge Unlock Soaring Heights (KUSH), which makes handcrafted sandals.

"I look at myself and see that I can make that transition as well," he added.

Said Cowan: "We saw the entrepreneurial spirit in action."

Added the young man, who is one of the vice-presidents of Glowbal Ink, which makes glow-in-the-dark ceramics: "Everybody has failures at the start, but they never let that stop them."

Obra is a pilot programme focused on improving employment prospects and life skills among young people through partnerships with private sector, public sector and youth-serving civil society organisations. The funding has been provided through Obra by the United States Agency for International Development. Addition-ally, matching funds for projects on the ground, including the Youth Employability and Entrepreneurship Training implemented by RISE, came from YUTE, a private sector-led youth initiative. The US-based International Youth Foundation, the executing agency for Obra, selected the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica as the secretariat for the Caribbean subregion.