Barclays teaches youths how to ‘unlock their potential’ |10 July 2014

 Barclays Bank (Seychelles) limited yesterday held their second coaching session under the theme ‘Unlocking Youth Potential’.

During the session, held at the Seychelles Trading Company’s conference hall, Barclays staff shared their professional and personal skills with youths from various organisations, secondary and post secondary institutions.

The session was also an opportunity for the youths to meet people who are running a business who could give them guidance.

Describing it as a great moment for the bank to be holding its ‘Unlocking Youth Potential’ for the second year between Barclays-Africa and Seychelles, the managing director of Barclays Bank (Seychelles) Limited, Rakesh Jha, said that Barclays has embraced citizenship which he said is an area where they integrate the bank with different sectors of the society to ensure that it makes a difference.

“Working with youths is one such area that we take great pride in. The youth is a very special sector of society. It is the foundation and future of the country,” said Mr Jha, adding that if they are able to get this sector of society in the right direction, the right path with support from partners, it will pay great dividends for the future of the country. Therefore this session becomes that much more important,” he said.

He added that another important part of the session is that they have other partners present who will share their experiences they have gained, challenges they have overcome during these years of service with the bank, their expectations, their mistakes and to give the youths insights into how they could use these in their future business ventures.

Various heads of departments of Barclays Bank also held presentations on various issues related to business and entrepreneurship. Such topics included Entrepreneurship Overview, where entrepreneurs should make sure that before they try to implement any new business idea, their proposal must make perfect business sense and that it is imperative they make a complete market research/analysis of the new venture.

The youths were also explained the difference between a businessman and an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is someone with a vision, love and passion for what he/she wants to do; a person who sees opportunities where others do not and turn challenges into opportunities and is also a person who takes risks. As for a businessman he/she is more focused on doing a business slowly and is not really that visionary.

To get the youths more involved in the sessions there were group sessions where they interacted with Barclays staff and discussed what business they would like to venture in and whether there was a need and demand for such a business.

Business plans, marketing your business and fraud risks in business also formed part of other topics discussed.
The youths were also advised to always have a Plan B in business in case the original one fails.