 and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm your host, Jacques Kingston Compton, and today we're talking about Bell Fund, its programs, its services, its history. And with me today are the Managing Director of Bell Fund, Ms. Amanda Delima, and the Training and Business Support Officer, Mr. Neil Sirier. Welcome to the program. Hey, good day. Welcome. Thank you. First of all, I want to know what Bell Fund is and what is its function. Okay. Okay. Pretty much Bell Fund was established to assist unemployed or self-employed persons either start up their own micro-enterprise or expand their existing small businesses. So pretty much Bell Fund aims to reduce unemployment by promoting unemployment and also self, I'm sorry, they promote, they aim to reduce unemployment by promoting self-employment and also to provide easy access to credit and training opportunities for self-employed persons. And so actually, as I mentioned you, the Training and Business Support Officer, what is your role exactly? Okay. So pretty much what happens is we offer a package at Bell Fund where the clients would come in with their business idea. You pitch it to the loans officer. If your idea fits our criteria, we would help to develop it from inception or from scratch. So what we would do is the loans officer would assist you in developing your loan proposal. Thereafter, she would perform a side visit to your place, prepare all the documentation, send your loan up for approval. Once your loan is approved, then there is a mandatory training program, small business training program that you have to attend and thereafter, you get disbursed, you get your funds. While you're in business, we provide a service called Business Support, which is like a mentorship type of service. So generally throughout the training program, we have an established training program in place, training modules that we assist our clients with. And we have a system where the clients are visited regularly to provide the support. I would imagine you have a range of industries. Oh, yes. Well, yes. Definitely, we fund a wide range of categories of business, anything from animal husbandry, farming, service-related businesses, tourism-related, service-related businesses, anything that is legal, I would say. Yes, we would assist. Well, legal can change, depending on what year you are in. Okay, but the general aim is to assist those persons. What we realize is unemployed persons or self-employed persons usually have difficulty with getting funding when approaching other financial institutions. One of the main challenges they would experience is meeting the deposit or collateral requirement. So fortunately for them at Bell Fund, there is no deposit or collateral requirement. Okay, so for our loans, we require no deposit, no collateral. What we ask to secure those loans, we will be taking a mortgage bill of sale on any equipment or appliance we will purchase on your behalf. And also we ask for guarantors. So you need three guarantors to secure the loan on your behalf. So pretty much what you would need is just a project idea. You don't necessarily need a business plan or proposal or portfolio, but if you do have that, that's fine. But once you have a sound business idea, you come in, no appointment is needed. You come into our office, you are suspect to a loans officer and we will assist you from that point. Now as you, there's two questions that come up as a result of what you just said. As you have such a wide range of industries that you look at, how do you provide business support exactly because they would, I don't know if you have professionals in like every single industry that comes your way. Okay, that's a very good question. So what we do, we work very closely with our system ministries and our sister government agencies or even the non-government agencies. We also encourage our clients that they work closely with their field officers or support officers. So we try our best to provide holistic support. So we would provide the business support. We would assist you with your bookkeeping, we would assist you with marketing, but based on the industry, when it comes to the technical support, we may need assistance from other officers, other professionals. It's also a situation where if you come in with a challenge or a situation, a problem situation and it cannot be handled at the business support level, which is my level, then you can be referred to the loans officer, to the accountant or even the manager if needs be. So you do have that form of easy access to all officers at the bell fund. You work in as an existing client or if you, you know, you're looking for information or advice or support, we would be able to assist you. And either of you can answer this question. What do you, you mentioned the guarantors, what do you, what do you look for in a guarantor? Okay, so a guarantor is the person who would guarant, would actually commit to making a payment on your loan if you cannot meet the payments. So as soon as you're unable to meet your payments, the guarantor will be called upon so that the payments can be made. And there's an agreement that they sign in relation to that. So they know exactly what they're getting into. And we tell them that upon signing, upon coming back in to sign additional documents, they will be informed that that is their role. And I think also a guarantor should also be one who encourages the, encourages the customer to continue and have a viable business because they would be the one encouraging them from the beginning. I mean, the initial thing is that they signed and they've agreed to help them already. So that's excellent encouragement. So that just needs to continue. And I think it would work even better when the guarantors are on board with that level of encouragement throughout. It's a form of support. Okay, so they understand full well the liability that they have. That is right. Okay. So I'd just like to add to that although the guarantor's role is pretty much serving our security or the backup for the client, we do clarify that they're not partners or they don't have a stake in the business. I mean, you're there to support the person. And also, I mean, one would realize, especially in those trying times, if somebody actually signs a legal binding document, you know, to back up a loan for you. I mean, that is somebody who really supports you. You understand that is somebody who really has your back. So there is no fine print. There's nothing hidden. When the guarantors come in, we do interview the guarantors. We do explain to them everything. There's the documents, they could take it, they could review it. And after signing, again, the hope is that it would never get to a point where we'd have to contact the guarantors. Because remember, we do have a support system, right? You do have officers visiting you. You can visit the officer, the bell friend you can call. Okay. So it is pretty much last resort, which are our best, I mean, that we would not have to contact the guarantors. But again, it is the security system that we have in place. We do have a delinquency policy in place. So it is the hope that it never gets to that point. Also, what the guarantors could do, they can request account information. So they could find out the status of the loan accounts, or whether the installment has been paid, how much is left, or anything at that sort. One more thing I'd like to add, that if the guarantor is self-employed, because we do assist self-employed persons, they will not be able to get assistance from us up until the client has repaid their loan in full. So if you're a carpenter, and then you're my guarantor, you cannot apply for a loan at the bell friend up until the client who you are serving as a guarantor for has paid their loan in full. Okay. Words due for our first break. I want you to stay with me. You're watching Issues and Answers. We'll be back in a moment. The Department of Finance has introduced the Electronic Government Procurement System, EGP. The EGP system has many benefits for stakeholders involved in government procurement, and government seeks to adopt a strategic approach to its purchasing process. Electronic Government Procurement improves efficiency of procurement and enhances data capture. The EGP is innovative and will automate the sequence from notification, receiving and evaluation of submissions to final contract award. It improves communication between vendors and government agencies, provides greater transparency, and builds confidence in the vendor community through increased access to information. To participate, vendors, suppliers and contractors must register on the Electronic Government Procurement Platform, EGP. Improving efficiency and transparency in the acquisition of goods, works and services. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. I'm your host, Jacques Kingston Compton. We're talking Bell Fund, and I'm here with the Managing Director of Bell Fund, Miss Amanda DeLima, and the Training and Business Support Officer, Mr. Neil Ciri. Before we went on the break, we were talking about guarantors, obviously. You mentioned very, you spoke very extensively about guarantors. There's just one more thing I want to know. Do they need any assets to be a guarantor? Okay, that's a very good question. No deposit or requirement, no deposit or collateral, I'm sorry, but the guarantor has to be permanently employed in the present job, in the current job, for three years or more, or self-employed for five years or more. Okay, so my next question, which I probably should have asked from the very beginning, could you talk about the history of Bell Fund? Who founded it? Why was it founded? How large it was maybe in the beginning, and where are you now? Okay, all right. What the name Bell Fund actually is hyphenated is the James Bell Grave Micro Enterprise Development Fund. So, Mr. James Alexander Bell Grave was a philanthropist from Community of Castries. He was once considered to be a champion of the poor, would assist those deprived persons in sports, in religious activities, in probably establishing their own small enterprises. So in the year 1999-2000, then the government at the time established the Bell Fund based on that philosophy. So Bell Fund was really established to carry on that legacy of Mr. Bell Grave. So it is our aim, as I indicated earlier, to reduce unemployment by promoting self-employment and also providing opportunities for persons who may not have that ease of access to funding or support. And earlier you also mentioned the support initiatives that you have when a person comes in and they're starting a business. Do you have any other sort of training or support programs? So initially the training comes when the loan is approved and it is mandatory that every customer gets that training and it goes through for as much as 10 days. And during that period of time, they will learn how to do their own micro-business accounting so that they can now get the information to the business support officers every time they're visited. So at least twice a month they will be visited and they would have to show everything they've learned. They would have to produce that to the business support officers to show that they're working. That's what they're doing and the business is still viable. This is also a method used to promote the customers out of the micro-business of Bell Fund and to make them able to get loans with the banks because the ones coming to us now will not qualify for a loan in the bank. They have no experience. They have no previous financing to show that the business will work so the banks won't approve the loan. But if through our training and our business support they can show and they follow through with all the information that they have to give each month, they can now show a six month, a one year of the record of income that they get. And that helps them get bigger loans through the banks and the credit unions. Our maximum is $30,000. So if they need to grow their business and they need more money, they would have to follow through with the training that they're given so that they couldn't. What I want to ask is what happens if they are sort of struggling while the business has taken off a little bit? Is there support that you offer as well? When you say struggling in the beginning or? Well in the beginning and even maybe throughout. So like I mean everyone is struggling right now for example because COVID came in and what most people have done was to try and assist by giving moratoriums, lowering the monthly payments to assist them. And basically that's what we you know it's a one on one type adjustment per person so that we could see how we could help them continue and make the payments consistent. Now financial management is something that I imagine is very important especially with what you do. Do you offer training in financial management and as well how important do you think it is? Because I feel like it's something that should probably be taught from the secondary school level as early as that. But what financial training do you offer and do you think it's very important? Okay so our training the whole framework has changed and has grown in that when we started off our training spanned over a two-day period. So what you find as the years have gone by we have realized that it is necessary to include more content to include more material and also to expand the training days and not necessarily in terms of days or in terms of the quality of the training. So we do have programs that spend over two days, over four days and probably over 10 days. We do work with some of our sister organizations where for example we would provide business plan training that would spend over a three-week period and definitely a continent record keeping and financial management would be two areas that we would definitely cover. So we do have training modules in a continent record keeping and financial management and we do see it as key definitely considering all of the challenges that we are facing right now to provide the clients with those skills. So it is definitely something that we are paying very close attention to. It is our role as the business support officer to try our best to nip any problems in the bud or and again or and or identify the problem. Try our best to assist at our level if it's something that we cannot assist then we would the client would be referred to a more senior officer or it could be the manager as you mentioned the several techniques that we use. The hope is that the problem situation does not get too severe that it leads to the closure of the business. So we really try our best to restructure loans to encourage the client to either expand or diversify. We try our best to work with the clients at all levels. There are some cases where the clients would have waited till the problem situations would have got too severe we would not be able to assist also for example where they're probably been evicted you know why it's too late for us to intervene but prior to that we have been successful in really helping the clients and really supporting them when they are experiencing difficulty. So we do we do take the we do provide that that level of support at all levels from the business support officer the loans officer the accountant up to the manager. We actually do for our second and final break but when we do come back there are a couple of things I want to talk about like you do have a social investment program that is in conjunction with the ssdf I want to talk about that and I also understand you have done some work with our boys matter so when we come back I do want to speak um talk about that okay you're watching issues and answers please stay tuned we'll be back in a moment. I'm with my 14 year old child she's driving me crazy I just don't know what to do all that I need is some good leaks to wake up. Alice ignore the counseling pension is given government employees have free access to professional counseling services under the employee assistance program known as EAP. EAP? EAP? What's that? Not me that telling people my business. Listen to me Alice I was struggling with my child I made an appointment to see an EAP counselor and I was very satisfied with the service that I received and you know what up to a day like today my information remains confidential. Cox how come nobody in the office knew anything about your counseling? Ah that's because EAP counselors they work on the strict clauses of confidentiality. I know you know what confidential means. EAP providing professional counseling services how much is it? Girl the counseling is free free for you free for your child and you know what your information remains confidential call the EAP unit at the ministry of the public service telephone number 468 2269 for more information. EAP works let it work for you. Welcome back you're watching issues and answers and we're talking Belfand I'm here with the managing director of the of the Belfand Miss Amanda Delima and the training and support business officer Mr Neal Siri. I did misspeak a while ago you don't have a program with our boys matter but what I do want to talk about is your program with helping women I don't know if you can speak about that. So we have a collaboration with SSDF right now and it's in progress where we will be assisting at least 20 women single women single parents female parents oh boy and based on that what they will be doing what they've been doing right now is training so the training has been taking place we have a certain we have it like split between the north and the south of the island so we have two sets of training going on after which in that training or right after they will be doing a business plan but Belfand has already done initial interviews with each of the subjects I would prefer to say and after that point they come back to us and the final few succeed at the training and the business developments and everything that they've documented they will be in receipt of a loan and a partial grant from the SSDF on one end for the grant and a loan from the Belfand. So they come to you the single mothers? The single mothers will be coming to us finally so all paperwork everything will be done through the Belfand but it is also an initiative by SSDF. Okay um other than the um being a single mother are there other sort of eligibility requirements? Well for now the program that we're doing in collaboration with SSDF is for single mothers however we are always open to anyone from age 18 up we don't give an end date for loans um it just depends on your idea and the loans are short term so we we are open to any type of business right now you can walk in right now until 430 every day to apply for your loan based on your business plan or your business idea. And can you tell us about because I'm very curious about this can you tell us about some of the success stories of Belfand who would people know maybe maybe they see a business somewhere and they and they have no idea that Belfand was the one that assisted them? Okay um we we do have um Benjamin Strzokin um he does um at least a landscaping business um he's one client who has really grown um when he came to to us he did it was a startup business um we did provide the support um from scratch we do have um a number of other clients who um okay if I could speak of um there was spring's um bread spring's bakery that was in Canary's I don't know if you recall right over the bridge canary's bread yeah but that was damaged by a hurricane or a storm right in Canary's right over the bridge um he was a client who we assisted um there are several other um clients but I'm not sure if I would be privy to share that information too but um again um those clients had humble beginnings um they did go through the program they were very receptive and um as Mr. Delima mentioned it is the hope of Belfand that once you have completed your loan or uh probably got to maybe half or or even throw it along the your loan term you would have been in a position to approach a bank or other financial institutions to expand your your enterprise so um we do have a number of success stories um it's probably some information I'll probably pass on to you a bit later um and we we it is our hope to continue to assist all clients so I mean we view all clients who are currently in business as success stories right because again when you look at their circumstances probably at the beginning or when you look at how they've their businesses have been resilient how they've been resilient given current challenges COVID and all so small businesses that are still in existence currently we consider them to be our success stories okay we're coming very close to the the end of the program but what I want you to briefly speak on are there any other initiatives or programs that you want to promote before we uh go off air um well we actively work with ssdf we say do and with care once um you know we always come up with new programs there new programs ongoing um but generally the Belfand program that we provide uh it's generally open to to all persons um we presently located um san jacos uh we open monday to friday between the hours of eight o'clock to four thirty um you could contact us via telephone 451 6069 451 8858 we on facebook under the name Belfand you could check us out check us check out our website it's www.BelfandSaintLusia.com um Saint Lucia STLUCIA um all the in there's some background on Belfand um you can meet our team um you could also review our forms as well they're downloadable as well um so the pretty much is easy access as we mentioned to uh Belfand and our support services so we just like to encourage persons don't be intimidated it's not like a bank um you don't need an appointment you could just walk in and ask to speak to an officer but I would just like to note uh it's unemployed persons we serve or self-employed persons okay also if if I have a job I'm sorry I'm sorry you know you don't qualify okay but if your circumstances have changed then you know we would be able to assist okay so it may be a situation where you would have resigned or displaced whatever the situation may be then you would have been an unemployed person um you know in need of assistance to start up your small business and I imagine your your job might have been affected a little bit by COVID oh yes um definitely it was a challenge to visit the clients of course we had the quarantine period going on so it was a bit of a challenge for us but fortunately we were able to remain in contact with our clients via phone calls um via video recording and we were able to provide that level of support so the support never stopped during that period okay but I want to thank you both for coming on to our program because Belfand serves an extremely important purpose and service to St Lucia so I want to thank you the two of you for coming on the show and thank you for your service with Belfand thank you and I I hope you can come back another time maybe to talk about any more of Belfand success stories in the future sure appreciate it you're watching issues and answers please stay tuned to other programming on the national television network and please catch us on our social media channels YouTube and Facebook thank you for watching again we'll be back next time