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Love for Culture & Beauty births ‘Kayawen-Everything Indigenous’
“Young entrepreneurs act as a source of inspiration and help with the high unemployment of our youth.”
By Allyiah Allicock
Some of the unique crafts and products ‘Kayawen-Everything Indigenous’ has to offer
Kaieteur News – This year, Amerindian Heritage Month is being observed under the theme: ‘Celebrating our traditional culture while building One Guyana’, and one person who has been celebrating and preserving her traditional culture for a very long time is the talented Sheena Scipio.
Young entrepreneur, Sheena Scipio
Scipio, who hails from the beautiful village of Moco Moco which is located in Region Nine, is the owner of an all-authentic indigenous business that was launched back in August 2020.
‘Kayawen-Everything Indigenous’ showcases and offers a wide variety of indigenous crafts and products.
Scipio in a recent interview with this publication explained that the name ‘Kayawen’ which is a macushi word, means ‘sky valley’ and it was the name of her village before it was changed to Moco Moco.
The young woman said that she was inspired to introduce the business venture because she wanted to keep her indigenous culture alive, adding emphatically it’s all because of, “My love of our indigenous culture and simple beauty that doesn’t require expensive gold and diamonds.”
Keeping her culture alive, Scipio said that since being in business she has noticed that indigenous women have now become a lot more confident in their natural beauty, and have been flaunting it with pride. Owing to this, she observed that her support base has been nothing more than excellent over the past two years.
According to the young lady, during the initial phases of her business, some of the few challenges she had included getting the necess
ary funding and materials needed to get things up and running. Also not having the needed encouragement and motivation to keep going was another challenge she had to battle. But all was not lost. Scipio shared that eventually, “Someone motivated me and helped me start my business with a personal loan which I invested into products. The loan has been repaid and I’m presently 100 percent on my own.”
As regards to the materials and tools, she related that “I also had to supplement acquisition of indigenous jewellery from our Wai-Wai brothers across the border to meet demands. I also had to convince my family and others in the Rupununi to increase agricultural production for the manufacture of cassareep, ground pepper and other products.”
Scipio, who is all about maintaining her indigenous culture and showcases it through her crafts and products, and plans to expand her online business to a physical storefront to better serve her clients.
With this in mind, our featured entrepreneur is of the belief that “Young entrepreneurs act as a source of inspiration and help with the high unemployment of our youths.”
And with this she encourages those that have made a meaningful contribution to our society to also act as role models in their respective communities.
When asked what more she thinks can be done to boost small businesses such as hers in the country, she mentioned easy access to money and programmes to encourage and guide the youths to start and maintain a business.
Persons interested in unique indigenous crafts and jewellery or other products can make contact with Scipio on telephone number (592) 666-9236 or check out what she has to offer on her Facebook page @ ‘Kayawen-Everything Indigenous’.
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