Belize Day Five

Today at breakfast we were joined by two business owners in Orange Walk. It was amazing to hear how much passion they have for what they do. After meeting several Belizian business owners on this trip, it has become clearer to me that life is too short to not do something that you love. At ITVET, we spent the day helping the students perfect their business plans and sales pitch for the Youth Business Trust. They will be presenting tomorrow, and three student groups will be receiving micro-loans to start their own business. Our group is amazed at the progress these students have made this week. Their business knowledge, writing skills, and presentation skills have increased exponentially. They are a bright group of students for sure, and i believe that in the future every single one of them will have a positive impact on Belize. We conducted a mock interview with each student as well. We acted as if we were in a real interview situation, and asked them questions that are likely to come up in a business setting. Afterward, we presented them with written feedback that they can use to improve their interview skills:

After lunch we had a panel discussion with several business professionals, both men and women, in the Orange Walk area. Again, it was so interesting to hear their vast experiences and backgrounds, and I believe that this information was particularly helpful to the ITVET students. 

What is perhaps the most amazing part of this trip so far is how close we have become to these students we are teaching, in such a short amount of time. After school, a handful of students agreed to take us fishing along the banks of the new river here in Orange Walk Town. Spending time with them outside of the classroom proved to us how amazing this bunch is. They have been great to us this week and I'm pretty sure we're going to miss them once we're back in Texas. While we were fishing they even taught us a little bit of the creole language they speak here. Tam and I were picking up pretty fast! That just goes to show that this week they have taught us just as much as we have taught them. Before we went our separate ways this evening, we took a group picture together. We asked them to display the only hand gesture we could think of at the time:

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Belize, so we're gonna try and make the most of it! We can't wait to hear the presentations tomorrow that the students have been working so hard on all week!