E.P Yorke Students showcase their business skills

Today, hundreds of students gathered at the Marion Jones Sports Complex in Belize City to support the young entrepreneurs of Edward P. Yorke High School. The institution held its third annual business expo, where its third-form students displayed various creative ideas turned into business ventures. The event was geared toward providing the students with an experience in entrepreneurship and business management. Business teacher Tashera Bowen explained the importance of providing her students with an opportunity to put their business skills to the test.

Tashera  Bowen, Teacher, Edward P. Yorke: “This year we have eighteen student booths and about nine business booths whereby they are showcasing a product or a service. It just came to me that maybe you know we need to do something a little more competency based to see if they’re actually learning the content and basically I just decided to do the expo as something small and it turned out to be a big even in the first expo that we did. But when COVID came around that caused a little impromptu expo in the last year. In terms of entrepreneurship I think that over the past three years since COVID has occurred a lot of businesses have developed since the so it has allowed me to see the need for entrepreneurs here in Belize and you know that allows us to grow our national income as it relates to entrepreneurs contributing back into the economy. Well I want them to see how you are supposed to carry yourself in a professional manner, the business etiquette, the set up you know how to actually operate a business because it’s not only owning the business or having the business and doing the marketing aspect it’s actually them operating today so they get to see how students can enter into the entrepreneurship field at this age.”

Third-form students Daniel Ajaero and Kezia Rosales shared their experience taking part in the expo and spoke about the lessons they learned while preparing their booths.

Daniela Ajaero, Student: “Our baskets contain like treats that you wouldn’t normally find in high school but it’s like treats that you can get that would be like from old childhood days. So we are bringing those in and we’re selling them to give off to the highschoolers to give them a little nostalgic taste of what they used to experience back in their olden days.”

Reporter: Why do you think it was important to take part in today’s expo? 

Daniel Ajaero, Student:”The importance was it gives us the experience of how to run a business, how to operate the expenses, how to calculate the production and what all it needs for a business to be successful.”

Kezia Rosales, Student: “Crumble delights we are doing parfait cups like desert cups with cookies, cream, cakes and we’re packaging it in a cup and it’s going to be really neat and really delicious.”

Reporter: What are you hoping to learn and what are you hoping for you and your classmates to learn from taking part ?

Kezia Rosales, Student: “Well you know, how to run a business and how to produce the product and be very creative with it and you know learn something good like when we grow older and own our own business. We learned a lot, like you have to wake up early to come decorate and set up because like you know it will be very rough when all the customers come along.”