2 weeks ago
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The United States Embassy in Belize this week hosted another installment of its ongoing efforts to strengthen entrepreneurship and regional business collaboration through the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative, better known as YLAI. The three-day regional forum brought together entrepreneurs and YLAI alumni from Belize and across the Caribbean for networking, peer learning, and discussions focused on expanding business opportunities and strengthening regional partnerships. The event saw a roundtable discussion at the Fort George Hotel in Belize City, featuring Belizean business leaders and U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Katharine Beamer. The initiative is a regular State Department program designed to empower emerging entrepreneurs throughout the Western Hemisphere and foster lasting connections between business leaders in Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada, and the United States. Speaking at the event was U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Katharine Beamer, who underscored the importance of entrepreneurship and regional collaboration in driving economic growth.
Katherine Beamer, Chargé d’affaires, US Embassy: “What we’re doing today and yesterday is bringing together alumni of this program from across the Caribbean to get together and continue to build their network and grow their businesses and acumen. They’re here to share experiences and see kind of what they learned in the United States during their exchange program and how they’re applying that to their lives and their businesses in their home communities and seeing sort of what’s working, what’s not working, how they can continue to grow. Because of course in the United States small businesses are the engine of our economic growth and we’re really committed to helping entrepreneurs in other countries succeed as well. Through many of our exchange programs, not just YLAI is the acronym for this one, but all of our exchange programs are really focused on developing promising young leaders in countries and building sort of long-term relationships with them. So the United States considers, you know, our alumni to be a long-term investment in the future of those people and that country. And so many of our entrepreneurs that have participated in this program before come back and are very prominent members of society that are contributing a lot in their community. So it’s a good way for the United States to maintain that relationship and connection with those people. So we have entrepreneurs from throughout the Caribbean. I think there are about probably 20, 25 from other Caribbean countries and then from Belize we’ve got eight. And so they are from, we’ve got, I was just having lunch with some ladies from Jamaica and St. Lucia, we’ve got folks from Guyana and Suriname. I believe we’ve also got someone from Antigua and Barbuda. So we have really like quite an impressive array of different Caribbean nations that are here and Belize represented.”
Since its inception, the YLAI program has connected hundreds of entrepreneurs from across the hemisphere, helping them develop sustainable business ventures and contribute to economic growth in their respective countries./
English (US) ·