A three-day workshop geared at educating new stakeholders on the fundamental characteristics and elements of the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Model got underway here on Monday.
The SBDC’s mission is to promote growth, innovation, productivity and revenue for small business, “Through improvement of their business administration” Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Employment, Trade, Industry and Diaspora Affairs Careen Prevost, told the opening ceremony at the Fort Young Hotel on Monday morning.
She pointed out that the Organization of American States (OAS) and USA have been working on the program for the last two years, “And what we are trying to do over the last few days is to see how we can adapt the SBDC model to our Dominican context.”
“So far in Dominica we have gone through a few stages of the SBDC network adaptation. We have completed the certificate training, we held three training sessions of which we had a number of organizations in Dominica which currently provide business support services…” she explained.
She noted further that the government of Dominica has been supporting entrepreneurship and small businesses in a number of areas, through partnership, technical assistance from the NDFD and the AID Bank.
“But we would like to go further,” Prevost stated, pointing out that through SBDC model, the OAS expects three things.
“We would like to be able to provide one-on-one confidential free and long-term assistance to entrepreneurs, also group training focused on subject of interest to small business and market research which we think is very essential to the success of our small businesses,” she explained.
“In addition to this we had a team of five individuals from Dominica who earlier this year visited the University of Texas in San Antonio and also Washington DC ….at this visit we were able to see the SBDC model in action and we came back with much more passion, revitalized and ready to implement this model in Dominica,” she added.
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Prevost also explained that there is an approved project for rural business centers in the amount of $200,000.
“What we are looking at in the Ministry of Trade is to utilize some of the community centers which are located in some of the rural communities and we would like to build up these centers as business incubators so that some of our small businesses who are operating in the communities would be able to come into these centers, operate from these centers and receive training and technical assistance from the Ministry of Trade,” she said.
According to her, it will be a collaborative approach with the Agencies of the Ministry of Trade , DEXIA, Invest Dominica, Employment and Small Business Agency.
The OAS is also looking to partner with the Dominica State College (DSC) in hope that the training, technical assistance and marketing research can be carried out through a center in the college and the NDFD to be able to provide increase business support services to their clients.
The remaining of the training will focus on the development of the SBDC program framework for the successful launch of the program in Dominica by the estimated date of November 2014.
The workshop is sponsored by the OAS and is organized in conjunction with Caribbean Export, the Institute for Economic Development at the University of Texas San Antonio, and the government of the United States of America.
A brilliant initiative. Now, if we can mix that in with Mr. Sam’s entrepreneurial training workshop at Jungle Bay, we may develop a number of “Mr. Sukie’s” (Herbert Winston) for the future.
This no doubt is still on the back burner because the public is not well informed, and painfully a gamble that many are afraid to try. So it seems. What is promising though, the government is part of the deal. Do l think it will work? Yes. Yes, because it is a new venture, and the money and support are there. The program needs everyone’s support, and the opportunities are plentiful. Why not give this a try, rather than begging the Chinese for money that disappears with D/can land, and second hand mentality.