Beverly Royer of Bath Estate, who makes mats out of verti-vert and who is involved in the craft business sector, has copped the 2015 Dominica Youth Business Trust (DYBT) Business Plan Innovation Award of $5,000.
She received the award at the DYBT 10th graduation ceremony and awards held at the Arawak House of Culture on Wednesday.
Royer was chosen among five other young entrepreneurs for the top award.
Her mats have been sold to hotels in Europe and Antigua.
Shortly after receiving her award she told Dominica News Online (DNO) that she was confident that she would receive a placement but didn’t expect the top prize.
“I wasn’t expecting the $5,000; it came to me as a surprise getting the award, I feel good,” she said.
Royer explained that the ‘verti-vert’ grass has been in Dominica for centuries and she decided to “give it a twist.”
According to Royer, she plans to use the money she received to educate other young people in order to expand her business.
“I am also trying to look for other young persons to see if I can braid the material so I could make more production to send to distributors and to different hotels…,” she stated.
Callister Sango, involved in ‘agrivertise business sector’ received the 2nd place, Kimran Jean-Jacques involved in naturalistic feeds received the 3rd place, Trevil Washington for Tagtech Solutions receive the 4th place, Larry Boney received the 5th place for Dash Services and Delia Pinard of Mother’s Touch Day Care received the 6th place.
They all received cash prizes of $1,000.
The determined Entrepreneurs Awards went to female entrepreneur, Kimara Matthew and male entrepreneur Franky Phillip while Albert Cuffy, Vincent Etienne and Reginald Severin received special recognition awards.
Forty- eight young entrepreneurs were awarded at the ceremony.
During its 11 years in operation the DYBT has trained 593 young people and currently there are 255 youth enterprises in operation within the Dominica economy.
Over 280 jobs have been created.
The activity formed part of the DYBT week of activities in observance of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW).
Photos of awardees receiving their awards below.
Good point
what is innovative of about weaving grass? this is something which has been passed down from generations, i really don’t get it..!
Beverly, can I make a suggestion to you? You may not be able to afford it at this point (I don’t know, maybe you can). But look ahead to see if you can get machinery to do the basic braiding of the grass. That way you can ramp up your production and cost.
If you have to depend on doing this very labor intensive process, your business will remain very small. Look to building this into something much bigger.