– Shevonne Bryne shares her success story
It’s a busy Monday at Anna Regina, and young entrepreneur Shevonne Bryne is preparing her animal supplies business for the week ahead. With a glare of determination in her eyes and the wit to fulfill her goals, Bryne says the business keeps her on her toes, and it is also a stark remin
der to her that she should always be hungry to achieve her goals.
Bryne, who is the youngest of three siblings, told Guyana Times that her aim is to change the perceptions of pet care, not only in her community, but in Region Two and beyond. She said she started the business, Amara’s Pet Supplies, located at Anna Regina, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and she has since braved the challenges which that dark period brought in its wake. She loves the entity wholeheartedly, and continues to promote and advance her cause.
How it started
A former student of the Anna Regina Multilateral School, Bryne completed her secondary education in 2013, and soon after, she enrolled in a supervisory management course at the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE). After completing the one-year course, she began pursuing a bachelor’s degree in animal science at the University of Guyana, and successfully graduated in 2019.
“Most people would say university is probably the hardest part of life, but for me it wasn’t. It was challenging, yes,” the ambitious young woman noted.
After completing her studies at the university, she had a well-laid-out plan.
“The hardest part of my life began after graduating with a degree.” She explained. After reading for her degree, she was optimistic that she would be gainfully employed soon after. It was not to be.
“I probably been to twenty-something interviews; I was either overqualified or didn’t have years of experience. I started to work at Teleperformance, and then I end up teaching at New Guyana School,” she added.
She said that she enjoyed those jobs, since they gave her good experience in the world of work. However, she said she still believed that she had more to offer to the world. “I always have the mentality to never settle. Even though I was okay with the work, I felt I wasn’t doing what was aligned with my soul. For the first time, it appeared as though a real obstacle had presented itself, one which stood between me and what I loved,” she noted.
Becoming an entrepreneur
She did what she needed to do to get by, she recounted, but she continued thinking about what she wanted to do, and she brainstormed a few ideas. “I knew the only way to have all the power in my hand was to be an entrepreneur, and I know by becoming an entrepreneur I can represent my hard work and creativity,” she explained.
She said although she had little to no experience in how to operate a business, she went ahead and opened the doors to her new business, Amara’s Animal Supplies. She took her middle name Amara and gave it to the business.
But opening a business in the middle of 2020 during the pandemic would present an array of challenges; and it did.
“Finding resources, financially funding the operation, and it had a lot of negative comments towards it,” she said. But Bryne was not giving up. “All these challenges went away when I realized I had to let go of the negative and keep the positive ones around,” she said.
She said she had the full support of her family and friends, and this pushed her to continue developing the business.
Why animal science?
Well, Bryne grew up around animals, and she said it was being around her father and their herd of cattle which played a vital role in her choosing that field of study and work.
