Kaci Hamilton, Contributor
Customers browse the shelves at Bookophilia on Hope Road, St Andrew. - Contributed
Of all the noteworthy stories to hit headlines this year, reports of the unconventional entrepreneurs in Harbour View stand out. After the bridge linking St Thomas to the capital was washed away by Tropical Storm Gustav's raging waters in August, quick-thinking enterprisers guided, lifted or boated people across the Hope River.
Two days after the bridge collapsed, the 'guides' were at work, and their colleagues - the sky juice and produce vendors - set up shop on the Kingston side of the bridge. The image of squealing women getting piggybacks across a murky, swirling river is now etched into Jamaican memory.
Some Jamaicans may have viewed this operation as hustling. The young, mainly male entrepreneurs saw their market, established prices ($100 to $200 per trip, with terms), and gave their clients options.
Dr K'adamawe K'nIfe, economist and coordinator of the entrepreneurship programme in the Department of Management Studies at the University of the West Indies (UWI), says Jamaicans are entrepreneurial out of necessity.
"If you go back in our history, we are the only labourers brought over to the colonies who didn't receive some kind of asset. Indentured labourers, mainly the Chinese and Indians, received roughly five acres of land. When some Africans became free, they bought land and used it for farming and so the marketplace became the space where we practised our enterprise."
Diversification
K'nIfe adds that it is the 1846 Sugar Equalisation Act that was one of the catalysts for Jamaican entrepreneurship. No longer getting subsidies from the British Government, Jamaicans were faced with the question: How am I going to diversify my economy? The focus shifted from sugar to non-traditional products like pimento and banana and Jamaicans were able to bounce back with some-thing new and different.
Dr Carolyn Hayle, who holds an MBA from Howard University in Washington, DC and a PhD in sustainable development from the University of the West Indies, Mona, sees things differently. She insists that Jamaicans are driven by their instinct for competition to come up with increasingly unique ways to be part of the workforce.
"Regardless of perception of others, the individual Jamaican believes he, his possessions, his ideas and solutions are always the best. We are confident that because we can do one thing, it can spread to others."
It is the same motivation that has us wanting large homes and expensive cars, says Hayle, senior programme officer at the Institute for Hospitality Management and Tourism at UWI.
"In the spirit of the title of a book by Professor Verene Shepherd, professor of social history at UWI, we want to disturb our neighbour. In this case, we want to show them who is better."
Whether it's selling cardboard to patrons at Sunsplash, creating all-inclusive resorts, making wine out of breadfruit, or selling jerk sauces to the world, this spirit of entrepreneurship has proved a blessing for the island's economy.
According to the 2007 Economic and Social Survey of Jamaica, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) employ 34 per cent of the labour force - about 375,800 people - and contribute 33 per cent of the gross domestic product.
Knack for resourcefulness
William Clarke, outgoing president and CEO of Scotiabank Jamaica, has referred to SMEs as the "apparent engines for growth for Jamaica in the 21st century".
Andrea Dempster, proprietor of Bookophilia Bookstore and Café in Kingston, reckons that Jamaicans have a knack for resourcefulness.
Dempster, whose formal training is in civil engineering, is proof of how creativity and passion combined to make business heaven. In addition to Booko-philia, she is one half of the consulting firm, Dempster McLaren Ltd, which was her follow-up to designing furniture for the family business, Exquisite Wicker. That business is run by her mother and brother.
Dempster credits her parents for her entrepreneurial spirit.
"My mother has a car rental, she started Fashion Rugs Ltd, which is still in operation. She just has business ideas left and right. When you interact with her, she's always looking at how you can develop an idea.
"My father, on the other hand, was a marine biologist who went into brewing at Guinness, and then left to start his own bakery (Flaky Crust Bakery in Mandeville). I learned from my dad that education is not limiting. It just prepares you in terms of how to think, and then what you do with it is totally up to you."
Wilma Lee Green-Allen, an aspiring chef from Albert Town, in the hills of Trelawny, just a few miles from Wait-a-Bit, believes the appetite for entrepreneurship comes from the ancestors.
"I think we get that drive and that motivation from the past, knowing and seeing that our forefathers worked so hard to have something of their own. I think Jamaicans are going to use that passion to excel and use whatever we have around us and make it our own."
Green-Allen attended the Elim Agricultural School (now Sydney Pagon High), where she got a certificate in home economics and has always dreamed of owning her restaurant. She is about to take the plunge into business ownership.
In 1998, Green-Allen entered the Trelawny Yam Festival for the first time and took home the prize of Best Yam Dish, for her yam casserole. Since then, she has entered occasionally and has never walked away empty-handed.
Impressive
She has put her own spin on yam pizza and yam salad which are included in her mother's catering business and snack shop.
If you thought the yam pizza was impressive, Green-Allen is working with the Jamaica Business Development Centre to mass-market the yam wine she produces with her family.
When asked why she never left tiny Albert Town to head to the Trelawny capital Falmouth or the nearby city of Montego Bay to make it big, Green-Allen states: "I've watched people go out and get educated, and they move away and never come back. But I always wanted to contribute to my community.
"My passion is seeing my community develop and have something unusual and unique. I want people to come from Kingston and get something special in Albert Town."
Despite spending several years in Washington DC, Dempster insists that her time there was strictly for education, and that her plan was always to come home.
"I happily took a massive pay cut to come back because I understood my focus," she explains. "It was about quality of life, being close to my family and being able to contribute something to my society."
Andrea Dempster
A woman grimaces as a resident gives her a piggyback across the Hope River in Harbour View, St Andrew, on September 1 for a fee of $200. - File
