Rotary and CESO Guyana

Truro Rotarian Lydia Sorflaten and Marketing Agricultural Economist Allan Sorflaten undertook  a  six week (Jan-Feb 2009) volunteer assignment in Guyana sponsored by EMPRETEC, an organization initially set up under the umbrella of the UN to 'Promote Innovative and Internationally Competitive Enterprises.'  As often happens, once the funding of the UN gave out, EMPRETEC  was left to fend for itself.  Due to the dedication of Judy Semple  Joseph, EMPRETEC Guyana has continued to work with small business.  Judy is a person with strong vision and determination.  She is well organized and works constantly to help improve the lives of people in Guyana.  Judy's 'other life' is as International Director for the Rotary Club of Central Georgetown, Guyana.

Allan was contacted by CESO because of his training as an Agricultural Economist and his 17 years of development experience with Agriculture Canada in marketing Nova Scotia agro food products. Lydia's training in Foods and Nutrition and as a Dietitian, complemented by thirty-two years of high school teaching experience made her an excellent fit for the assignment.  The first two weeks of the assignment were designated for Client Visits, Technical Consultations and Workshop Preparations.

A series of seven Marketing Seminars was designed by Allan and Lydia to focus on Packaging and Product Improvement, Labeling and Branding, Effective Presentation and Marketing Strategies. 19 participants completed the Marketing Seminar and  29 participants completed the Food Safe program.  The participants were all small to medium size agro-processors, many of them women attempting to supplement their limited family incomes with cottage scale types of enterprise. Some had been assessed by EMPRETEC as being in particular need of help in marketing development and all were anxious to absorb the information was conveyed to them in the workshops.

The project was well organized. For example, Mrs. Joseph had earlier organized a small group of local, well qualified and well chosen local consultants who, it is hoped will be able to provide the  expertise and leadership required to further guide further development of Guyana's agro food processing sector.

Products being manufactured included Hot Sauce, Green Seasoning, Pepper Seasoning, Ketchup, Cassereep,  Squashy Sauce, Carambola Fruit Mix (the base is five fruit or star fruit) used in making Black Cake, home ground spices, flours (eg, barley, plantain.), fruit juices and jams.

The Rotary Club of Truro sponsored the purchase of the Food Safe program.  This program has been developed by the British Columbia Food Safe Secretariat and is used in many provinces in Canada (including Nova Scotia) and has been translated into a number of languages for use world-wide.  EMPRETEC and the Food and Drug Division of the Health Dept. in Guyana are working on an implementation plan for Food Safe.

Department of Health has a staff of three Food and Drug Inspectors who are expected to do all monitoring and enforcement of regulations in this area for the entire country.

With the help of a local business person and materials supplied by the Rotary Club of Truro, we were able to buy an HP printer that allowed us to print each Workshop agenda, each follow up, colored promotional posters made for each client about their business, business cards for each, product labels, workshop handouts, etc. etc.  It really made the workshops live and the clients so proud!  We watched shy, somewhat low self-confidence people come alive as proud individuals with confidence in their businesses.  We really didn't expect to see such a great and positive change in a short six weeks! 
  
In 1967 Rotarian Maurice Strong became head of Canadian government Foreign Aid. Rotarian Strong innovatively developed new approaches in Canadian efforts to alleviate world poverty by co-founding CESO.   CESO coordinates activities of retired professionals to assist in developing countries.  Through assignments like this, CESO and Rotary continue to be strong partners in International work.