Teen Entrepreneur – Rheshaun Dawe

Last summer, Empower Youth International (EYI) continued its mandate to serve at risk youth by holding its inaugural Teen Agri-Entrepreneurship Programme. This innovative programme aims to help teens pursue their business dreams by harnessing their creativity and entrepreneurial skills. During the week long programme, the participants were divided into teams and tasked with producing and launching an Agri-business all in just one week! The team with the best business plan would be the winners. 

Rheshaun Dawe, an eighteen-year-old student of the St. George Secondary School participated. Dawe stated the programme impacted positively in his life because it gave every participant a voice.  “I realized the value of the programme within the first ten minutes of being there as the organizers listened attentively to all of us”says Dawe.

As for the competitive component of the programme, Dawe admitted to feeling nervous during the process because the team took a while to come up with a business idea. Eventually the team leaned upon Dawes’ jewellery making skills and came up with a business idea that involved making jewellery out of natural materials.  He credited the win to the teamwork that was fostered between himself, his mentor Shanice Forte (an EYI volunteer) and his peers. Dawe stated that  “the win “did not sink in” at first but he was incredibly grateful to the organizers who he can still call upon for business advice and personal support since the completion of the programme.”  

Dawe learned jewellery making from his first form teacher and is a Corporal in the Barbados Cadet Corp. He would like to join the Barbados Defence Force and become a member of parliament as he wants to help his community. Interested students can visit the Empower Youth International website https://empoweryouthint.org to  take advantage of being participants in the programme.

Article by: Kizze Cumberbatch, Public relations specialist, Empower Youth International