Patrick Amarasinghe, a very successful entrepreneur and a pioneering personality of establishing trade chambers in Sri Lanka, is the co-founder of the Young Entrepreneurs Sri Lanka (YESL) in 1998.
Today after 12 years or so, handy with this ambitious programme of YESL, he is looking around for want of sponsors which he says would take care of at least part of the massive 5.5 million youth in this country in tackling their unemployment problems and eradicate poverty.
At the briefing |
At a press briefing held this week in Colombo by YESL to announce the organizing of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010 (GEW) Sri Lanka and to participate at GEW in November, a dejected Mr Amarasinghe said that sponsors for these projects are difficult to find. He said that from the inception for a period of 10 years USAID funded YESL programmes but unfortunately due to the global financial crisis which seriously affected the US, USAID withdrew funding which resulted in cancelling 400 schools under YESL programmes.
On the sidelines of the press briefing, when Business Times queried from Mr Amarasinghe that in the backdrop of many success stories coming from various countries, what would be the penetration levels of employment and investment etc by the young entreprneurs who have obtained tremendous experience in their school entrepreneurial programmes, he was unable to provide any substantial figures.
He said that the YESL is a programme that would definitely become a very powerful tool to sustain the youth unemployment problem, but said that it is extremely difficult to find the initial capital to launch a business for these willing youth who complete their education at schools. He said that to promote school YESL programmes they needed funds. So sponsors are needed to push the programme up, but sponsors are hard to come.
He said that it would be the responsibility of the state to provide sufficient facilities for these young people to commence business after their school education, so that these youth would not hang around universities or demand government jobs. He said that the Board of Investment is providing lots of concessions and benefits to prospective entrepreneurs but nothing is provided for these young people. He said that there are a lot of youth who have obtained YESL experience who are willing to commence businesses of their own but stuck for want of initial capital.
When asked whether there is any impact on the poverty levels in the country as a result of youth commencing businesses, Mr Amarasinghe said that the impact on poverty is to the proportion of those youth who initiated and progressed in their businesses.
Mr Amarasinghe said that the state is not only not affording any assistance to these youth, but on the other hand has appoarently become a stumbling block.
The point raised by Mr Amarasinghe about the state becoming the stumbling block was amply proved by various statements made by several youth who ventured to initiate business and the difficulties they have encountered from concerned state agencies.
W.A. Harsha P Wijesinghe is an Advanced Level Grade Commerce student from Polonnaruwa Royal College and with the experience he has gained in the school YESL programme has borrowed Rs 4,000 and while doing his studies last February purchased some tea from Hatton.
He packed the tea and has been successful in marketing it. As an honest entrepreneur he took steps to register the company, in February this year itself. His sells between 10 to 20 kgs per month and the average turnover per month has been around Rs 10,000 while his profit has been around Rs 3,000. This young man stunned the audience, after he said that he got the shock of his life when he received income tax forms from the Tax Department.
The other point in issue is that those who were successful in entrepreneurship at school level are seeking other employment such as professionals and lawyers, showing the difficulty of initiating a business of their own.
Mr Amarasinghe now turns to the corporate sector and in the past 18 months he has prepared one project report after another to seek funding for this ambitious project, but funds are hard to come by still. |
E-mail
