YOUth brand – an empowerment organization aimed at boosting leadership capabilities
Not Rehanna Ramsay
Recipients and sponsors of the first 40 Under 40 Entrepreneurial Awards held in 2019.
Some of the YOUth Brand Ambassadors.
Kaieteur News – “Imagine Guyana whose young people are determined to make a difference, committed to excellence, community and country. Imagine if they had more resources, or were being educated and encouraged to be more inventive … ”
This is the concept behind Brand YOUth, a new empowerment movement that seeks to harness the nation’s youth leadership capabilities toward achieving a common goal – building a better Guyana.
A goal, explained by Chairman and CEO (CEO) of YOU YOUth Brand, Selywn Collins, explained that it can be achieved through three basic strategies, building economic relief initiatives, empowerment initiatives and an entrepreneurial academy. He explained that the concept behind Brand YOUth was birthed just less than three years ago.
Since then, the YOUth Brand has hosted the first 40 Under 40 Entrepreneurial Awards, hosted a Tax Reform Forum in an effort to foster meaningful discourse on how the Guyana tax regime can be made more favorable to local entrepreneurs. The YOUth Brand pushes other initiatives to engage, enlighten, empower, and encourage entrepreneurship.
Founder and CEO of YOUth Brand, Selywn Collins.
The US-based web solutions consultant, best known for his self-titled television broadcast series “Conversations With Selwyn” (CWS), told Kaieteur News that the idea was spun from a conversation he had years before with Guyanese in the Diaspora for the nation’s youth.
“They were making pretty derogatory comments about our young people here in Guyana. They were saying that things like the Guyanese youth were not ambitious; they have this sense of entitlement, they didn’t want to work and were basically waiting for leaflets and that hurt me because I knew it wasn’t true and so I wanted to do something to change that perception of our young people. I didn’t know what it was at the time, ”Collins said.
At that time, Collins was on a journey to capture the stories of prominent people, many of them Guyanese or of Guyanese heritage.
Since then the CSW creator has interviewed over 500 people from all over the world and compiled their stories in the hope of giving future generations an insight into the lives of key / historical figures.
Collins said many of the people in the CSW story collection have incredible life stories to tell.
The web solutions expert, who believes that people are never more connected than when they share their stories, explained that it helps expose people to the commonality that “shows us, despite the cultural differences and ethnicity, that we are more alike than different. ”
He continued, “I wanted to share the knowledge and experience but more importantly create a library for future generations, so that young people have access to these amazing thoughts.”
Collins pointed out that the same concept started an empowerment movement that is now called the YOUth Brand worldwide. Having conducted a number of initiatives, including a women’s empowerment conference here, Collins said he was moved to highlight the stories of some of the incredible young people who are impacting academics, Guyana’s creative, philanthropic frontier and skills.
“I started to tell myself to imagine if we could harness these powerful stories about young people and put them on a platform to inspire others. It’s not just about showing them to the Diaspora but giving the other young people here in Guyana something to look at so they can move in the direction of self-improvement. ”
As the idea for the empowerment initiative began to evolve, Collins said he reached out to some of the nation’s leading young people and began a discussion on how he could honor them and highlight their achievements.
And within a year, Collins said the YOUth (Global) Brand was born. In April 2019, the organization hosted the inaugural 40 Under 40 Entrepreneurial Awards, a ceremony that featured 40 of Guyana’s under-40s crème de la crème.
Awardees include Research Entrepreneur Anjie Lambert; Curl Fete Hair and Natural Beauty Expo CEO Tamika Henry-Fraser; Eldon Marks, Founder and CEO at V75 Inc; Evie Kanhai-GurChuran, Managing Director of Women at Tech Guyana and CEO of Java Coffee Bar; Dr. Vishnu Doerga, CEO of Action INVEST Caribbean Inc. and Coach Guyana, and Stacy Dos Santos Rahaman, co-founder of the popular blog / tourism site Visit Guyana.
The organization, which currently has 40 ambassadors, is expected to grow each year.
“We have a mentoring program and others [initiatives] to help bring together the youth of Guyana… ”Collins added.
Speaking on the movement’s prospects, YOUth Brand Awards Alumni Eldon Marks told Kaieteur News that he looks forward to networking with the community of entrepreneurs, academics and youth skill sets to help bring about improvement for the nation .
He noted that the YOUth Brand offers a pathway for Guyana’s young people to pool efforts to address issues that affect them individually and collectively.
“If an entrepreneur has a purpose, the potential to change the world, you can imagine what a community of us could do,” he said, adding that YOU YOUth is looking to deliver a series of campaigns aimed at the root causes of many issues facing the youth of Guyana.
Marks noted that the brand, through its empowerment strategy, is set to make a big impact on many young people, especially entrepreneurs.
“The YOUth Brand is committed to addressing many of these issues by encouraging participation from those directly affected – Guyanese entrepreneurs,” he said.