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By Jacques-François Levesque

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Aspiring young entrepreneurs looking for guidance can now call on Anika Marquis, the new Coordinator for the Youth Development Entrepreneurship Initiative at the Victoria-Madawaska South Community Business Development Corporation (CBDC) based in Grand Falls. Marquis started her new job on May 12, after graduating in International Commerce at the New Brunswick Community College in St. Andrews. Mother of two children, she has a great passion for entrepreneurship.

Marquis told The Victoria Star in a recent interview that she wants to contribute her talents in the field of entrepreneurship. Her efforts will be focused on three strategic orientations: aspiring young entrepreneurs, existing entrepreneurs and the repatriation of youth while they are studying and those who are already working outside the region.

"This program is a first for the Grand Falls region aimed at young entrepreneurs between the age of 18 and 35 years old", stated Marquis.

The region that she will be serving includes Ste. Anne, St. Leonard, St. André, Grand Falls, Drummond, Perth-Andover, Aroostook and Plaster Rock.

In the framework of aspiring youth entrepreneurs, Marquis wants to promote awareness among young people so that entrepreneurship becomes a career choice, to raise awareness among young people so that they realize the importance of improving their entrepreneurial skills, as well as ensuring they possess the basic business skills and to help and assist educators in order to facilitate the teaching and promotion of entrepreneurship.

"I want to contribute my services to schools in the region by giving them presentations related to existing programs and projects and I want to explain to those young aspirants that entrepreneurship is also a career choice among other possible careers," she added.

In the framework of existing entrepreneurs, she wants to guide young aspiring and existing entrepreneurs toward the available sources of financial and technical support, to ensure a particular and continuous interest regarding the integration of youth in the economic development of the region and to improve the entrepreneurial skills of young entrepreneurs in order for them to acquire the basic skills in business.

"I want to put in place different activities, such as group meetings, establish a communication network of lived experiences, and at the same time for these experiences to become future educational tools. Also, for the first time in the region, there will be a new activity, the Young Entrepreneur of the Year award", Marquis added.

On the repatriation front, Marquis wants to bring back youth to the region, to improve the networking skills of its young people while expanding their network of contacts as well as awaken and raise awareness of people of the region of youth, entrepreneurs and people involved in the socio-economic development of the region and to change young people's perception of the region by informing them of the opportunities that exist.

"I want to promote entrepreneurship and I want to demonstrate the reasons why they should establish themselves in our region", she commented.

The Victoria-Madawaska South CBDC branch is part of a network of an autonomous, not-for-profit organization that works with all levels of government and the private sector to meet the needs of small business. In rural Atlantic Canada, there are 41 CBDCs dedicated to the development of small business and job creation.