West Berbice CPG aims for sustainability of their SBB-funded projects

DPI, Guyana, Friday, April 06, 2018

West Coast Berbice Community Policing Group (WCB-CPG) women, who were given grants for poultry rearing by the Small Business Bureau (SBB), are making full use of the opportunity to generate income from the projects. The SBB gave the women, most of whom are single parents, assistance to construct poultry pens and to acquire poultry rearing equipment earlier this year. Suppliers of the construction material, equipment, and baby chicks were paid by the Bureau and the women took responsibility for the rearing of the birds.

Liaison Officer of the Police ‘B’ 1-Division, Carl Sutton, disclosed that the beneficiaries are CPG members who had previously given many hours in support of the regular police force in the District.

“These women participated in crime prevention patrols in the villages during the day and many times during the nights, all voluntarily.”

The liaison officer said a number of the women were single parents and would benefit from viable economic activities, such as poultry rearing, to improve the quality of life for themselves and their families.

This realisation motivated him to approach the Ministry of Business and eventually the SBB to seek help for them.

One of the women, Morlyn Usher said the process of registering and meeting certain stipulated requirements for access to the grant took six months.

“It was painstaking but I and the others persevered and, in the end, succeeded in accessing the grant of three hundred thousand dollars,” she said.

“They didn’t give us the money in our hands. We had to identify suppliers and the SBB made out cheques to these persons who then handed over the items to us,” Usher added.

Sutton disclosed that some of the poultry rearers initially experienced some difficulties with the white birds.

“One woman suffered a high mortality rate but she came to realise that the coldness of the area where she lives, not too far from the Atlantic Coast may have contributed to the high mortality rate. She has since reared another batch of chicks with better results and is well on her way to increase the number of birds that she rears for sale to customers,” he said.

The women said the support they have been given has allowed them to increase the number of birds being reared and to ensure that their business increases in profitability through achieving greater efficiencies in their projects.

“We don’t want this to end up as a one-shot project. We want our businesses to grow and get bigger and bigger for the benefit of ourselves and our customers,” another beneficiary Jacqueline Semple asserted.

 

By: Clifford Stanley