There is money on the table and hardly anyone from the Family Islands is reaching for it.
That is the quiet problem behind Be Inspired, the Ministry of Youth and Sports grant handing young Bahamians between 18 and 35 up to $5,000 to start or grow a business. It is not new money dressed as news. It is the Self Starter program, decades deep in the ministry, rebuilt for a generation that never planned on a nine to five.
Youth officer Keilli Brathwaite noticed the imbalance and went looking for it herself, touring the Family Islands to make one point clear. This is not a Nassau program.
So the window tilted. July 1 to September 30 belongs to Family Islanders alone. First preference, first pick, and it shuts the moment 100 viable applications land.
What it asks for is almost insulting in its simplicity. NIB smart card. Valid business license. Passport. Apply through MyGateway.
Then seven online modules, an exam at 70 percent, a two minute pitch video that does not need to be pretty, and invoices, because the ministry pays your vendors, not you.
Her pitch is blunt. Try it and learn something, or stay scared and learn nothing.
