“Don’t sit down and talk about want a job. Government say job, job, job, it’s not there. You have to create your own. Find something and do something and you can achieve,” Rodney ‘Ruddy’ Bent recently declared.  “Ruddy”, as he is commonly called, operates a small business on Red Hills Road, serving his mouth-watering pan chicken. 

Recognizing that more jobs are created at the micro and small enterprise level, in comparison to large enterprise throughout the Caribbean, prompted First Heritage Co-operative Credit Union (FHC), Caribbean Broilers Group (CBG) and the Social Development Commission (SDC), to collaborate to host free business development workshops across the island. The workshops focused on teaching community residents how to fund, market and efficiently manage their small businesses. Included in each workshop were small business owners like Ruddy and Mark Stennett, who served as motivational speakers to share testimonials of their journey to business ownership.

At age 17, Bent found his way to Kingston from Clarendon in search of a man who promised him a job at his sawmill. But there was no job when he arrived. Too embarrassed to return home, which also lacked opportunities, Ruddy stayed in Kingston.

“I don’t have a father. A when me a 40-year-old mi know my mother. The way how mi grow me sleep unda tree. The insect dem a night time dem no bodda trouble me again because me just say dem nah bite me, because me no have nowhere to live,” an emotional Ruddy told the Kingston & St. Andrew South community residents. He identified the mango tree near the Grants Pen clinic as the place he used to call home. “Night top a night mi sleep under it. Me house that, mango tree,” he said shaking his head as he reminisced. “And mi never get miself in a wrong doing.” The room was silent.

From there Ruddy worked in construction before becoming a bus conductor. “Me go training school, boasy, have on me conductor ID pin pon mi shirt but the money couldn’t stretch. It never really a work out,” he said. In 1982, still struggling, Ruddy decided to try the pan chicken business having seen the success of others. “Mi start wid two chickens. Mi get a drum and get a welder build it for mi. I never even have money to pay him. I paid him in chicken,” Ruddy said. “All the work mi a do, it never pay off til mi start jerk chicken.”

Fast forward some 30 years and a CB Pan Chicken Championship later and Ruddy is one of the most famous pan chicken vendors in Kingston. “Mi now can cook over 100 quarters per night, school my kids dem from high school, to college to New York. Then I extend my business to another one, mi start to sell ground provision, yam and banana and all those things.” Ruddy told the audience he has purchased a car to operate a taxi, built his own home and is now assisting a niece in medical school, as well as other family members, all with the proceeds from his pan chicken business. He said the popularity he gained from entering the CB Pan Chicken Championships in which he placed second in 2012’s Eastern Regional, led to a listing in Redbook and numerous catering opportunities. 

“It hasn’t all been easy. You know business is up and down, you have to look out for that. You go out, rain fall and you don’t sell. Don’t give up, keep the fight. You have to fight for what you want in life. Never stop fight,” Ruddy encouraged. The community residents, obviously moved by Ruddy’s presentation gave a standing ovation as he exited the stage while persons close to him commended him with a handshake.  

“This is what it’s all about,” Alicia Bogues, CB Pan Chicken and Bad Dawg Sausages brand manager said. The workshops are not simply to empower the residents with the necessary tools to develop businesses, but to inspire them as well.  You can make it; you can succeed if you work hard at it. Neither myself nor Mrs. Richardson from FHC, could have touched or inspired these persons to dream as Rodney did.”

Speaking at the Kingston & St. Andrew North workshop, Mark Stennett told community residents he has been shot, robbed and cheated. “Police all make mi haffi run from mi jerk pan inna middle road. It rough but mi can send mi yutes go a school, give them lunch money an no haffi beg nobody. Gi dem a buss me never get,” he said.

Operating his business in Half Way Tree for more than 20 years, the soft-spoken Stennett said he became his own boss after the person who hired him to jerk paid him a counterfeit note he had collected while selling. Then, Stennett said, payment ranged from $1,000 - $1,500. Now, he hires persons to work for him. Also a winner in the 2010 and 2012 CB Pan Chicken Championship Eastern Regionals, Stennett described the business journey as rough but good. “Mi a come from nuttin inna de ghetto, ghetto. Nuff a mi fren dem dead off. Mi used to sell bottle. To see what mi come from, til somebody can see mi on the street and say see the number 1 pan chicken man inna town and recommend mi, it feel good.” 

Stennett encouraged the community residents: “Do something for yourself more than work for people. Try something.” 

Original Source

KINGSTON:

George Henry from Northern Caribbean University (NCU) is about to see his dream become a reality. The dream, 'Inventive Learner', which goes live for a trial run this month, is a social game-based-learning management system offering a modern twist to teaching.

Recognising that individuals learn differently, 28-year-old Henry is using 21st-century technology to ensure improved academic success in the classroom. But his own success, he partly attributes to the First Heritage Co-operative Credit Union's (FHC) $300,000 Entrepreneurship Grant, which has assisted him towards take-off.

FHC again set ablaze many persons' desire for self-growth at its 2015 awards ceremony held recently at the Knutsford Court Hotel, where the credit union issued a $300,000 business grant to Giovanni Maddix, owner of UBoards, an enterprise that produces paper-based whiteboards that are portable, lighter, and more flexible than the standard whiteboard.

"One of my goals on completing school was to have a business. Yet, I was certain that I didn't want to start with a loan. I was very driven to figure out how to secure equity capital in the business," Giovanni Maddix, winner of the FHC Entrepreneurship Grant, shared with guests at the ceremony.

Maddix outlined that his business was two years in the making. The business concept was based on the need to constantly adjust and amend his ideas based on feedback from experts as well as valuable feedback from Basil Naar, FHC's CEO.

"I can't explain to you the joy I feel when I talk with these young people and hear their business ideas, many of which have the potential to be million-dollar companies, but then I look around and realise that graduates leaving universities pursuing entrepreneurship have access to little or no funding. As a person passionate about young Jamaicans fulfilling their career aspirations, I decided that something had to be done, and so we instituted the FHC Entrepreneurship Awards Programme as far back as 2006. We pioneered the entrepreneurship thrust, knowing that entrepreneurship is instrumental in job creation and economic development," Naar said.

"This programme," Naar said, "supports FHC's mandate towards the quest of nation building and the growth of new SMEs while enhancing the welfare of its members and the communities in which the company operates."

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

"The entrepreneurship grant also equips us to build relationships with the youth, creating and sustaining membership

loyalty and revenue generation in the long term," Naar said. Since its inception in 2006, 28 grants have been awarded.

Brian Lumley, award-winning chef and guest speaker at the awards ceremony, shared with the audience where his desire to become an entrepreneur originated.

"Entrepreneurship came as second nature for me because (while) growing up, my mom, who worked at the airport at the time, used to sell gift baskets for Valentine's Day or Mother's Day just so that we could get a little bit of extra cash to spend at Christmas. So I had to mimic her. In college in my third year at HEART, I started my company, Foodie Focused Limited ... . If I knew then about one of these grants, this would have filled a gap, a huge void. Therefore, I commend FHC for providing a scholarship like this."

Also keen on youth development, FHC offers several

opportunities to secondary and tertiary students through the YOUTH Savings Programme as well as the annual FHC GSAT and Tertiary Scholarships. Additionally, FHC awarded 17 GSAT and tertiary scholarships at the ceremony to selected youth savers of the credit union who have maintained a minimum B average.

Vaniah Findley, Gizelle Mowatt, Leonette Headley, and Dayna Devonish were awarded the Renald Mason Scholarship instituted in honour of his stalwart contribution to the credit union movement; and Tameka Norman and Roje Dave Miller, the Oswald Thorbourne Scholarship, instituted in honour of the founder of Churches

Co-operative Credit Union for displaying leadership and community volunteerism, while maintaining a minimum 3.5 GPA.

Gizelle Mowatt, a full-time International University of the Caribbean media and communications student, shared her testimony: "We each have our personal struggles. These scholarships are more than just tuition, far more than just money. Many of us were on our last leg, desperate, but each filled with our dreams and still facing the obstacles of insufficient finances. The FHC Foundation has given us hope, a reignited commitment to excellence, and the will to be a blessing to others."

This year, the FHC Foundation awarded grants and scholarships to students who excelled at the highest levels while vowing to continue its efforts in the years to come.

LIST OF SCHOLARSHIP/

AWARD WINNERS

GSAT scholarships:

Shenoya Brown, Kiona Baxter, Zantaye Williams, Anthea Thompson, Marc Arbouine, Antoine Dallas, Celine Nicholson, Alliyah Windross, Peta-Gaye Taylor, Abeo Antoinette Hinds, and Peta-Kaye Tucker

TERTIARY:

Renald Mason Scholarship: Vaniah Findley, Gizelle Mowatt, Leonette Headley, and Dayna Devonish

Oswald Thorbourne Scholarship:

Tameka Norman and Roje Dave Miller

ENTREPRENEUR

PROGRAMME:

Giovanni Maddix, owner of Uboards